# Mass Gap without Confinement

## TL;DR

This paper explores a family of three-dimensional gauge theories with supergravity duals, revealing diverse infrared behaviors including mass gap, confinement, and fixed points, explained through eleven-dimensional supergravity geometry.

## Contribution

It identifies three distinct infrared behaviors in a one-parameter family of gauge theories and explains these phenomena geometrically via supergravity.

## Key findings

- Theories can have a mass gap without confinement.
- One parameter value leads to an infrared fixed point.
- Another parameter value results in both mass gap and confinement.

## Abstract

We revisit a one-parameter family of three-dimensional gauge theories with known supergravity duals. We show that three infrared behaviors are possible. For generic values of the parameter, the theories exhibit a mass gap but no confinement, meaning no linear quark-antiquark potential; for one limiting value of the parameter the theory flows to an infrared fixed point; and for another limiting value it exhibits both a mass gap and confinement. Theories close to these limiting values exhibit quasi-conformal and quasi-confining dynamics, respectively. Eleven-dimensional supergravity provides a simple, geometric explanation of these features.