Mon, 16 Nov 2009
12:00 -
13:00
L3
M2-branes at hypersurface singularities and their deformations
James Sparks
(Oxford)
Abstract
I will introduce a family of supersymmetric Chern-Simons-matter theories in d=2+1 dimensions, labelled by a positive integer n, and argue that these describe the low-energy worldvolume theory of M2-branes at a corresponding family of four-fold hypersurface singularities. There are dual descriptions in Type IIA involving a family of three-fold hypersurface singularities, and also a Type IIB dual of Hanany-Witten type involving D3-branes suspended between 5-branes. The n=1 theory has manifest N=6 superconformal symmetry and is the Aharony-Bergman-Jafferis-Maldacena theory on an M2-brane in flat spacetime. The n>1 theories are not conformal: however, the n>2 theories are all argued to flow to the same superconformal IR fixed point, while the n=2 theory flows to a theory that is AdS/CFT dual to a certain homogeneous Sasaki-Einstein 7-manifold. This is the base of the four-fold "conifold" singularity, and the smooth deformation of this singularity is interpreted as a particular mass deformation in the field theory. The IR theory of this deformation is conjecturally confining.