Renormalization group flows from holography; supersymmetry and a \(c\)-theorem (Q1573880)

The authors derive first order equations that determine a supersymmetric kink solution in five-dimensional \(N=8\) gauged supergravity. The kink interpolates between an exterior anti-de Sitter region with maximal supersymmetry and an interior anti-de Sitter region with one quarter of the maximal supersymmetry. One eight of supersymmetry is preserved by the kink as a whole. This is interpreted as describing the renormalization group flow in \(N=4\) super-Yang-Mills theory broken to an \(N=1\) theory by the addition of a mass term for one of the adjoint chiral superfields. A detailed correspondence is obtained between fields of bulk supergravity in the interior anti-de Sitter region and composite operators of the infrared field theory. It is pointed out that the truncation used to find the reduced symmetry critical point can be extended to obtain a new \(N=4\) gauged supergravity theory holographically dual to a sector of \(N=2\) gauge theories based on quiver diagrams. Beyond this, more general kink geometries are considered and a \(c\)-function is constructed that is positive and monotonic if a weak energy condition holds in the bulk gravity theory. For even-dimensional boundaries, the \(c\)-function coincides with the trace anomaly coefficients of the holographically related field theory in limits where conformal invariance is recovered.