The Conformal Anomaly of M5-Branes

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the conformal anomaly for N M5-branes scales as N^3, using supersymmetry to connect six-dimensional interactions with four-dimensional N=4 Yang-Mills theory, revealing new structural insights.

Contribution

It establishes a novel relation between six-dimensional M5-brane anomalies and four-dimensional supersymmetric gauge theories, and uncovers new interaction structures in the (2,0) theory.

Findings

Conformal anomaly scales as N^3 for N M5-branes.

Derived structure of four-derivative interactions in (2,0) theory.

Identified interesting features in six-derivative interactions.

Abstract

We show that the conformal anomaly for N M5-branes grows like $N^3$. The method we employ relates Coulomb branch interactions in six dimensions to interactions in four dimensions using supersymmetry. This leads to a relation between the six-dimensional conformal anomaly and the conformal anomaly of N=4 Yang-Mills. Along the way, we determine the structure of the four derivative interactions for the toroidally compactified (2,0) theory, while encountering interesting novelties in the structure of the six derivative interactions.