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1. Resolving spacetime singularities in flux compactifications & KKLT

   https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP08(2021)093  

   Carta, Federico; Moritz, Jakob (August 2021, Journal of High Energy Physics)

   A bstract In flux compactifications of type IIB string theory with D3 and seven-branes, the negative induced D3 charge localized on seven-branes leads to an apparently pathological profile of the metric sufficiently close to the source. With the volume modulus stabilized in a KKLT de Sitter vacuum this pathological region takes over a significant part of the entire compactification, threatening to spoil the KKLT effective field theory. In this paper we employ the Seiberg-Witten solution of pure SU( N ) super Yang-Mills theory to argue that wrapped seven-branes can be thought of as bound states of more microscopic exotic branes. We argue that the low-energy worldvolume dynamics of a stack of n such exotic branes is given by the ( A 1 , A n− 1 ) Argyres-Douglas theory. Moreover, the splitting of the perturbative (in α ′) seven-brane into its constituent branes at the non-perturbative level resolves the apparently pathological region close to the seven-brane and replaces it with a region of $$ \mathcal{O} $$ O (1) Einstein frame volume. While this region generically takes up an $$ \mathcal{O} $$ O (1) fraction of the compactification in a KKLT de Sitter vacuum we argue that a small flux superpotential dynamically ensures that the 4d effective field theory of KKLT remains valid nevertheless. 

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2. 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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3. M5-brane sources, holography, and Argyres-Douglas theories

   https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP11(2021)140  

   Bah, Ibrahima; Bonetti, Federico; Minasian, Ruben; Nardoni, Emily (November 2021, Journal of High Energy Physics)

   A bstract We initiate a study of the holographic duals of a class of four-dimensional $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 2 superconformal field theories that are engineered by wrapping M5-branes on a sphere with an irregular puncture. These notably include the strongly-coupled field theories of Argyres-Douglas type. Our solutions are obtained in 7d gauged supergravity, where they take the form of a warped product of AdS 5 and a “half-spindle.” The irregular puncture is modeled by a localized M5-brane source in the internal space of the gravity duals. Our solutions feature a realization of supersymmetry that is distinct from the usual topological twist, as well as an interesting Stückelberg mechanism involving the gauge field associated to a generator of the isometry algebra of the internal space. We check the proposed duality by computing the holographic central charge, the flavor symmetry central charge, and the dimensions of various supersymmetric probe M2-branes, and matching these with the dual Argyres-Douglas field theories. Furthermore, we compute the large- N ’t Hooft anomalies of the field theories using anomaly inflow methods in M-theory, and find perfect agreement with the proposed duality. 

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4. Open F-branes

   https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP04(2022)073  

   Hatsuda, Machiko; Siegel, Warren (April 2022, Journal of High Energy Physics)

   A bstract We include in F-theory, through open Type I F-theory branes (F-branes), string theories with N = 1 supersymmetry, both Type I and heterotic. Type I branes are distinguished from Type II by worldvolume parity projection. The same open Type I branes describe both open Type I superstrings and closed heterotic upon different sectionings from F-branes to worldsheets, while closed Type I superstrings arise from closed Type I branes. (Type II superstrings come from closed Type II branes, as described previously.) F-theory manifests the exceptional-group U-duality symmetry, with all massless bosonic fields in a single gauge coset. This coset branches to the usual bosonic supergravity fields upon sectioning. We examine in detail the simple case of D = 3 F-theory: parity projection reduces the Type II coset SL(5)/SO(3,2) to the Type I coset SO(3,3)/SO(2,1) 2 = SL(4)/SO(2,2). 

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5. 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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