Holographic RG flows and Janus solutions from matter-coupled N=4 gauged supergravity

TL;DR

This paper constructs new holographic RG flows and Janus solutions in matter-coupled N=4 gauged supergravity, revealing rich IR phases and conformal interfaces in dual 3D N=4 SCFTs.

Contribution

It introduces a novel class of supersymmetric RG flows and Janus solutions with various residual symmetries in matter-coupled N=4 supergravity.

Findings

New RG flows interpolate between AdS4 vacuum and singular geometries.

All singularities are physically acceptable within supergravity.

Constructed Janus solutions describe conformal interfaces with different supersymmetries.

Abstract

We study an $SO(2)\times SO(2)\times SO(2)\times SO(2)$ truncation of four-dimensional $N=4$ gauged supergravity coupled to six vector multiplets with $SO(4)\times SO(4)$ gauge group and find a new class of holographic RG flows and supersymmetric Janus solutions. In this truncation, there is a unique $N=4$ supersymmetric $AdS_4$ vacuum dual to an $N=4$ SCFT in three dimensions. In the presence of the axion, the RG flows generally preserve $N=2$ supersymmetry while the supersymmetry is enhanced to $N=4$ for vanishing axion. We find solutions interpolating between the $AdS_4$ vacuum and singular geometries with different residual symmetries. We also show that all the singularities are physically acceptable within the framework of four-dimensional gauged supergravity. Accordingly, the solutions are holographically dual to RG flows from the $N=4$ SCFT to a number of non-conformal phases in the IR. We also find $N=4$ and $N=2$ Janus solutions with $SO(4)\times SO(4)$ and $SO(2)\times SO(2)\times SO(3)\times SO(2)$ symmetries, respectively. The former is obtained from a truncation of all scalars from vector multiplets and can be regarded as a solution of pure $N=4$ gauged supergravity. On the other hand, the latter is a genuine solution of the full matter-coupled theory. These solutions describe conformal interfaces in the $N=4$ SCFT with $N=(4,0)$ and $N=(2,0)$ supersymmetries.