Penrose Limits, Deformed pp-Waves and the String Duals of N=1 Large n Gauge Theory

TL;DR

This paper explores the Penrose limit of a supergravity dual to a specific N=1 gauge theory, revealing a solvable string background with unique supersymmetry properties and identifying the dual gauge theory operators.

Contribution

It introduces a new pp-wave background with fluxes preserving twenty supercharges, solvable string theory, and links it to a large charge limit of an N=1 gauge theory.

Findings

The background preserves twenty supercharges.

String theory on this background is exactly solvable.

Identified gauge theory operators corresponding to string states.

Abstract

A certain conformally invariant N=1 supersymmetric SU(n) gauge theory has a description as an infra-red fixed point obtained by deforming the N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory by giving a mass to one of its N=1 chiral multiplets. We study the Penrose limit of the supergravity dual of the large n limit of this N=1 gauge theory. The limit gives a pp-wave with R-R five-form flux and both R-R and NS-NS three-form flux. We discover that this new solution preserves twenty supercharges and that, in the light-cone gauge, string theory on this background is exactly solvable. Correspondingly, this latter is the stringy dual of a particular large charge limit of the large n gauge theory. We are able to identify which operators in the field theory survive the limit to form the string's ground state and some of the spacetime excitations. The full string model, which we exhibit, contains a family of non-trivial predictions for the properties of the gauge theory operators which survive the limit.