N=1* in 5 dimensions: Dijkgraaf-Vafa meets Polchinski-Strassler

TL;DR

This paper uses the Dijkgraaf-Vafa method to analyze five-dimensional N=1* Super Yang Mills theory, confirming supergravity predictions and revealing nonperturbative moduli space branches and light degrees of freedom.

Contribution

It is the first to apply the Dijkgraaf-Vafa technique to intrinsically higher-dimensional phenomena, connecting 4D superpotentials with 5D actions.

Findings

Confirmed supergravity predictions of nonperturbative branches

Constructed the map between 4D superpotential and 5D action

Showed superpotential is flat along nonperturbative branches

Abstract

One of the powerful techniques to analyze the 5 dimensional Super Yang Mills theory with a massive hypermultiplet (N=1*) is provided by the AdS/CFT correspondence. It predicts that, for certain special values of the hypermultiplet mass, this theory develops nonperturbative branches of the moduli space as well as new light degrees of freedom. We use the higher dimensional generalization of the matrix model/gauge theory correspondence and recover all the prediction of the supergravity analysis. We construct the map between the four dimensional holomorphic superpotential and the five dimensional action and explicitly show that the superpotential is flat along the nonperturbative branches. This is the first instance in which the Dijkgraaf-Vafa method is used to analyze intrinsically higher dimensional phenomena.