Exactly marginal deformations from exceptional generalised geometry

TL;DR

This paper uses exceptional generalised geometry to geometrically interpret exactly marginal deformations of $ ext{AdS}_5$ flux backgrounds in supergravity, linking gauge theory operators to geometric structures and symmetries.

Contribution

It provides a geometric framework for understanding exactly marginal deformations in $ ext{AdS}_5$ flux backgrounds using exceptional generalised geometry, including symmetry considerations and obstructions.

Findings

Deformations arise from generalised structures solving moment maps.

Exactly marginal deformations correspond to quotients by extra isometries.

The supergravity analysis matches gauge theory results and beta functions.

Abstract

We apply exceptional generalised geometry to the study of exactly marginal deformations of $\mathcal{N}=1$ SCFTs that are dual to generic AdS$_5$ flux backgrounds in type IIB or eleven-dimensional supergravity. In the gauge theory, marginal deformations are parametrised by the space of chiral primary operators of conformal dimension three, while exactly marginal deformations correspond to quotienting this space by the complexified global symmetry group. We show how the supergravity analysis gives a geometric interpretation of the gauge theory results. The marginal deformations arise from deformations of generalised structures that solve moment maps for the generalised diffeomorphism group and have the correct charge under the generalised Reeb vector, generating the R-symmetry. If this is the only symmetry of the background, all marginal deformations are exactly marginal. If the background possesses extra isometries, there are obstructions that come from fixed points of the moment maps. The exactly marginal deformations are then given by a further quotient by these extra isometries. Our analysis holds for any $\mathcal{N}=2$ AdS$_5$ flux background. Focussing on the particular case of type IIB Sasaki-Einstein backgrounds we recover the result that marginal deformations correspond to perturbing the solution by three-form flux at first order. In various explicit examples, we show that our expression for the three-form flux matches those in the literature and the obstruction conditions match the one-loop beta functions of the dual SCFT.