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1. Janus on the brane

   https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP07(2020)243  

   Gutperle, Michael; Uhlemann, Christoph F. (July 2020, Journal of High Energy Physics)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract We present a non-supersymmetric deformation of probe branes describing conformal defects of codimension two in AdS/CFT. The worldvolume of the probe branes is deformed from AdS p × S 1 embedded in an AdS p +2 × ℳ D  −  p  − 2 background to an embedding of Janus form, which uses an AdS p− 1 slicing of AdS p and in which the brane bends along the slicing coordinate. In field theory terms this realizes conformal interfaces on codimension- two defects. We discuss these “Janus on the brane” solutions for AdS 3 × S 1 D3-branes in the AdS 5 × S 5 solution of Type IIB, realizing interfaces on surface defects in $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 4 SYM, and show that similar solutions exist for probe branes in AdS p +2 × S 9 −p vacua of M-theory and in the AdS 6 × S 4 solution of massive Type IIA. 

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2. Quiver tails and brane webs

   https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP10(2024)118  

   Franco, Sebastián; Rodríguez-Gómez, Diego (October 2024, Journal of High Energy Physics)

   A new type of quiver theories, denoted twin quivers, was recently introduced for studying 5d SCFTs engineered by webs of 5-branes ending on 7-branes. Twin quivers provide an alternative perspective on various aspects of such webs, including Hanany-Witten moves and the s-rule. More ambitiously, they can be regarded as a first step towards the construction of combinatorial objects, generalizing brane tilings, encoding the corresponding BPS quivers. This paper continues the investigation of twin quivers, focusing on their non-uniqueness, which stems from the multiplicity of toric phases for a given toric Calabi-Yau 3-fold. We find that the different twin quivers are necessary for describing what we call quiver tails, which in turn correspond to certain sub-configurations in the webs. More generally, the multiplicity of twin quivers captures the roots of the Higgs branch in the extended Coulomb branch of 5d theories. 

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3. Wormholes with ends of the world

   https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP09(2025)166  

   Wang, Diandian; Wang, Zhencheng; Wei, Zixia (September 2025, Journal of High Energy Physics)

   A<sc>bstract</sc> We study classical wormhole solutions in 3D gravity with end-of-the-world (EOW) branes, conical defects, kinks, and punctures. These solutions compute statistical averages of an ensemble of boundary conformal field theories (BCFTs) related to universal asymptotics of OPE data extracted from the 2D conformal bootstrap. Conical defects connect BCFT bulk operators; branes join BCFT boundary intervals with identical boundary conditions; kinks (1D defects along branes) link BCFT boundary operators; and punctures (0D defects) are endpoints where conical defects terminate on branes. We provide evidence for a correspondence between the gravity theory and the ensemble. In particular, the agreement of theg-function dependence results from an underlying topological aspect of the on-shell EOW brane action, from which a BCFT analog of the Schlenker-Witten theorem also follows. 

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4. The 5d tangram: brane webs, 7-branes and primitive T-cones

   https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP05(2025)175  

   Bolla, Ignacio Carreño; Franco, Sebastián; Rodríguez-Gómez, Diego (May 2025, Journal of High Energy Physics)

   Two highly successful approaches to constructing 5d SCFTs are geometric engineering using M-theory on a Calabi-Yau 3-fold and the use of 5-brane webs suspended from 7-branes in Type IIB string theory. In the brane web realization, the extended Coulomb branch of the 5d SCFT can be studied by opening the web using rigid triple intersections of branes — i.e. configurations with no deformations. In this paper, we argue that the geometric engineering counterpart of these rigid triple intersections are the T-cones introduced in the mathematical literature. We extend the class of rigid brane webs to include locked superpositions of the minimal ones. These rigid brane webs serve as fundamental building blocks for supersymmetrically tessellating Generalized Toric Polygons (GTPs) from first principles. Interestingly, we find that the extended Coulomb branch generally exhibits a structure consisting of multiple cones intersecting at a single point. Hanany-Witten (HW) transitions in the web have been conjectured to correspond geometrically to flat fibrations over a line, where the central and generic fibers represent the geometries dual to the webs before and after the transition. We demonstrate this explicitly in an example, showing that for GTPs reducing to standard toric diagrams, the HW transition corresponds to a deformation of the BPS quiver that we map to the geometric deformation. 

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5. Anomaly inflow methods for SCFT constructions in type IIB

   https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP02(2021)116  

   Bah, Ibrahima; Bonetti, Federico; Minasian, Ruben; Weck, Peter (February 2021, Journal of High Energy Physics)

   A bstract We extend the anomaly inflow methods developed in M-theory to SCFTs engineered via D3-branes in type IIB. We show that the ’t Hooft anomalies of such SCFTs can be computed systematically from their geometric definition. Our procedure is tested in several 4d examples and applied to 2d theories obtained by wrapping D3-branes on a Riemann surface. In particular, we show how to analyze half-BPS regular punctures for 4d $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 4 SYM on a Riemann surface. We discuss generalizations of this formalism to type IIB configurations with F 3 , H 3 fluxes, as well as to F-theory setups. 

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