Mass deformations of 5d SCFTs via holography

TL;DR

This paper constructs a holographic RG flow for a 5d SCFT on S^5 using supergravity, computes its free energy holographically, and proposes a dual field theory that matches the supergravity results via localization.

Contribution

It introduces a new holographic model for a 5d SCFT on S^5 and identifies a candidate dual field theory with matching free energy calculations.

Findings

Holographic free energy matches localization results for small deformations.

Constructed explicit supergravity solutions for the RG flow.

Proposed a mass-deformed IR theory dual to the supergravity solutions.

Abstract

Using six-dimensional Euclidean $F(4)$ gauged supergravity we construct a holographic renormalization group flow for a CFT on $S^5$. Numerical solutions to the BPS equations are obtained and the free energy of the theory on $S^5$ is determined holographically by calculation of the renormalized on-shell supergravity action. In the process, we deal with subtle issues such as holographic renormalization and addition of finite counterterms. We then propose a candidate field theory dual to these solutions. This tentative dual is a supersymmetry-preserving deformation of the strongly-coupled non-Lagrangian SCFT derived from the D4-D8 system in string theory. In the IR, this theory is a mass deformation of a $USp(2N)$ gauge theory. A localization calculation of the free energy is performed for this IR theory, which for reasonably small values of the deformation parameter is found to match with the free energy calculated holographically.