The M2-M5 Mohawk

TL;DR

This paper investigates the complex spike structures formed by M2 branes ending on M5 branes, revealing a rich brane fractionation pattern and dual CFT states through supergravity solutions with AdS3 factors.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of 'mohawks' as new brane configurations arising from M2-M5 intersections and connects these to dual CFT ground states via specific supergravity solutions.

Findings

Identification of spike structures with brane fractionation

Connection of near-brane solutions to dual CFT ground states

Revelation of AdS3 invariance from spike self-similarity

Abstract

We show that the near-brane back-reaction of M2 branes ending on M5 branes has a rich "spike structure" that is determined by partitioning the numbers of M2 branes that are terminating on groups of M5 branes. The near-brane limit of the metric describing these branes has an AdS$_3$ factor, implying the existence of a dual CFT. Each partition of the M2 and M5 charges among spikes gives rise to a different "mohawk" revealing a new layer of brane fractionation. We conjecture that all these mohawks are dual to ground states of near-brane-intersection CFT's. We show that the supergravity solutions describing these mohawks are part of the large families of AdS$_3$ $\times S^3 \times S^3$ solutions described in [arXiv:1312.5477]. We identify precisely which of these families are relevant to brane intersections and show that the AdS$_3$ invariance emerges from the self-similarity of the spikes.