text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The AdS/CFT correspondence  gives the large $`N`$ dual description for $`𝒩=4`$ super Yang Mills. It would be nice to find similar correspondences for pure Yang-Mills theories with less supersymmetry. By “pure” we mean without matter. In this paper we make some progress in this direction by finding a geometry that is dual to a little string theory that reduces to pure $`𝒩=1`$ super Yang-Mills in the IR. We consider a little string theory , or NS 5 brane theory, in type IIB string theory. In the IR this theory reduces to six dimensional super Yang Mills with sixteen supercharges. We wrap this brane on $`S^2`$ and we twist the normal bundle in such a way that we preserve only 1/4 of the supersymmetries and we give a mass to the four scalar fields. This theory reduces then to pure $`𝒩=1`$ super Yang-Mills in the IR. Starting from the geometric description of the NS 5 brane theory, we modify the boundary conditions for the metric to take into account that we are wrapping an $`S^2`$ and we have an appropriately twisted normal bundle. Then we find the supergravity solution using methods similar to the one in , i.e. reducing the problem to gauged supergravity in seven dimensions, reading the solution from  (see also , for further studies on the solution) and then lifting it up to ten dimensions using . When the supergravity approximation is valid the little string theory scale and the scale of the four dimensional theory are comparable. Nevertheless the solution has all the expected qualitative features. It has a $`U(1)_R`$ symmetry broken in the UV to $`Z_{2N}`$ and the full solution breaks it further to $`Z_2`$ and we find $`N`$ different solutions. The theory is confining and it is magnetically screening. It has domain walls between the different vacua. Strings can end on the domain walls.

When we try to take the decoupling limit we find a rather precise RR $`\sigma `$ model that we should quantize in order to find the decoupled string theory describing $`𝒩=1`$ super Yang-Mills, though some aspects are a bit unclear at this stage. It is not clear, for example, how the string coupling is quantized.

While this paper was in preparation we became aware of the work of I. Klebanov and M. Strassler  which has some overlap with ours since they also study a theory that reduces to pure $`𝒩=1`$ Yang-Mills in the IR. We also became aware of a paper by C. Vafa on the same topic that appeared after the first version of this work . We thank them for discussions and for telling us about the relevance of the deformed conifold metric.

## 2 NS 5-branes on $`S^2`$

Since the appropriate UV description of the fivebrane theory is the little string theory, or NS-5brane, we start with an NS 5-brane in type IIB string theory. The geometry dual to the little string theory is

| $`ds_{str}^2=`$ | $`dx_6^2+N(d\rho ^2+d\mathrm{\Omega }_3^2)`$ |
| --- | --- |
| $`e^\varphi =`$ | $`e^{\varphi _0\rho }`$ |

(1)
where $`\varphi _0`$ is an arbitrary constant that can be changed by shifting $`\rho `$. $`N`$ is the number of fivebranes. This represents a fivebrane whose worldvolume is $`R^6`$. Now we would like to consider a brane whose worldvolume is

$$ds_6^2=dx_4^2+Ne^{2g}d\mathrm{\Omega }_2^2$$
(2)
so that the brane is wrapped on a two sphere of radius $`R^2=Ne^{2g}`$. The factor of $`N`$ is introduced just for later convenience. In order to preserve supersymmetry we should twist the normal bundle. This twisting is achieved by embedding the spin connection into the R-symmetry group. Since the non-trivial part of the spin connection is in a $`U(1)`$ subgroup we should choose how to embedd the $`U(1)`$ in $`SO(4)SU(2)_R\times SU(2)_L`$. $`SO(4)`$ is the R-symmetry group of the NS fivebrane and it rotates the $`S^3`$ in (1). If we embedd the spin connection in $`U(1)_RSU(2)_RSO(4)`$ we preserve only four supercharges or $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetry in four dimensions. Let us see this more precisely from the fivebrane worldvolume point of view. The spinors that generate the supersymmetries on the NS fivebrane are two six dimensional spinors with positive chirality that are in the $`(\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{𝟎})`$ of $`SU(2)_R\times SU(2)_L`$ and two negative chirality spinors in the $`(\mathrm{𝟎},\mathrm{𝟐})`$. The supersymmetries that are generated by the spinors transforming under $`SU(2)_L`$ are broken. The preserved supersymmetries have positive chirality in six dimensions and are such that the $`U(1)_R`$ charge is correlated with the chirality of the spinor in the two directions of the sphere. We see that this leaves us with 1/4 of the original supersymmetries of the five-brane. The four scalars transverse to the fivebrane transform under the $`(\mathrm{𝟐},\mathrm{𝟐})`$ of $`SU(2)_R\times SU(2)_L`$. This implies that, after twisting, they become spinors on the two sphere so that they do not have any zero modes. In the IR the only massless fields are the gauge fields and the gauginos. So in the IR we have pure $`𝒩=1`$ super Yang-Mills. The value of the Yang-Mills coupling is given in terms of the volume of the sphere by

$$\frac{1}{g_4^2}=\frac{Vol_{S^2}}{g_6^2}=\frac{Ne^{2g}}{2\pi ^2}.$$
(3)
We have described this in terms of the low energy field theory on the fivebrane so we are implicitly assuming that the volume of the $`S^2`$ is much larger than the five dimensional gauge coupling so that we can apply the low energy description for the fields on the fivebrane. We will later discuss more precisely the limit in which the four dimensional super Yang-Mills theory is expected to decouple. For the moment we will analyze this fivebrane theory, without taking the decoupling limit. This twisted fivebrane theory seems to have a $`U(1)_R`$ symmetry which is the $`U(1)_R`$ that we are twisting. This is the $`U(1)_R`$ symmetry of $`𝒩=1`$ super Yang-Mills, it acts on the gluinos but not on the gauge fields. We will see that this $`U(1)_R`$ symmetry is broken to $`Z_{2N}`$ by worldsheet instantons in the NS description. This twisting also preserves the $`SU(2)_L`$ symmetry of the fivebrane theory. But this symmetry does not act on the massless fields, it only acts on the Kaluza Klein modes which are expected to decouple in the IR.

## 3 Finding the gravity solution

As explained in  we need to impose an appropriate boundary condition for the geometry. In this case the boundary is at $`\rho \mathrm{}`$. So we impose the condition that the seven dimensional geometry has a boundary which is $`R^4\times S^2`$ and we implement the twisting by imposing appropriate boundary conditions for the seven dimensional gauge fields which come from the isometries of $`S^3`$. In this case we will impose that the $`U(1)_R`$ gauge field in $`SU(2)_R`$ is equal to the spin connection on the $`S^2`$.In other words, we set $`A^3=\mathrm{cos}\theta d\phi `$ for large $`\rho `$. It turns out that an ansatz like this is possible only if we allow the volume of $`S^2`$ to grow as $`\rho \mathrm{}`$. This is related to the running of the coupling in four dimensions. The string frame geometry will involve only the six dimensions parametrized by $`\rho `$, the two-sphere and the coordinates on the three sphere. In fact this solution is a particular case of the general solutions analyzed in . It is a “compactification” with torsion to four dimensions. It is not really a compactification because the four dimensional Newton’s constant is zero in our case since we are decoupling gravity111In  the heterotic case was considered, but the results extend simply to the type II case.. Though the general conditions for a supersymmetric compactification were completely spelled out in  it is convenient, in order to find an explicit solution, to use a different technique.

Since the boundary conditions are imposed on seven dimensional fields it is convenient to work with seven dimensional gauged supergravity , which is a truncation to seven dimensions of the ten dimensional equations in the near horizon region of a five brane . This seven dimensional theory contains the metric, a dilaton, $`SU(2)_R`$ gauge fields and a $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ field, which accounts for the seven dimensional components of the $`B`$ field. In  the seven dimensional $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ was dualized into a three form with a four form field strength. We set this field to zero for the time being. From the discussion above we expect that in string frame this seven dimensional solution will be $`R^4`$ times a three dimensional geometry parametrized by $`\rho `$ and the coordinates on $`S^2`$, with non-zero components of the gauge fields only along these three dimensions. We can see this explicitly from the form of the supersymmetry variations in seven dimensional string frame

| $`\delta \lambda `$ | $`=\mathit{}\varphi ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{N}}{4}}\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\mu \nu }F_{\mu \nu }ϵ+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}}ϵ`$ |
| --- | --- |
| $`\delta \chi _\mu `$ | $`=(D_\mu +iA_\mu )ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{N}}{2}}F_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Gamma }^\nu ϵ`$ |

(4)
The gauge fields are

$$A_\mu =\frac{1}{2}\sigma ^aA_\mu ^a,F=\frac{1}{2}F^a\sigma ^a,F_{\mu \nu }^a=_\mu A_\nu ^a_\nu A_\mu ^a+ϵ^{abc}A_\mu ^bA_\nu ^c$$
(5)
where $`\sigma ^a`$ are the Pauli matrices and the spinors carry an extra $`SU(2)_R`$ index on which these Pauli matrices act. Let us first try a simple ansatz which correctely describes the UV (or large $`\rho `$) part of the solution

| $`ds_{str}^2=`$ | $`dx_4^2+N[d\rho ^2+e^{2g(\rho )}(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\phi ^2)]`$ |
| --- | --- |
| $`A^3=`$ | $`\mathrm{cos}\theta d\phi `$ |

(6)
and all other gauge fields equal to zero. We see that this ansatz respects the boundary conditions that we want to impose at infinity. Putting this in the supersymmetry equations (4) we find the solution

$$e^{2g(\rho )}=\rho ,\varphi =\varphi _0\rho +\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{log}\rho $$
(7)
We have absorbed the integration constant in the definition of $`\varphi _0`$. The dependence of $`g`$ on $`\rho `$ is related to the dependence of the four dimensional coupling (3) on the scale $`\rho `$.

This metric (6) is singular at $`\rho =0`$ and the singularity is of a bad type according to the criteria in . The necessary ingredient in order to resolve the singularity comes in when we consider the symmetries of this solutions. The metric we found still has the $`U(1)_R`$ symmetry, these are $`U(1)`$ charge rotations in the $`\sigma ^3`$ directions in this seven dimensional description. We expect, however that this symmetry should be broken by the choice of vacuum in the four dimensional gauge theory. Naively we expect that the solution should be such that the $`S^2`$ should shrink to zero. A similar effect (actually, the opposite) was found in the topological string theory/Chern Simons correspondence in  where one starts with a large $`N`$ Chern Simons theory on $`S^3`$, where the $`S^3`$ is that of a resolved conifold, and one ends with a dual geometry which is a conifold resolved to a finite size $`S^2`$ 222 This point was emphasized to us by C. Vafa.. In our case we cannot shrink the $`S^2`$ to zero because there is a non-trivial $`U(1)`$ flux through it. If we view this bundle as an $`SU(2)`$ bundle then it becomes clear that we can first trivialize the bundle and then shrink the $`S^2`$ to zero. Actually, this problem is completely analogous to a magnetic monopole in $`SU(2)`$ theory vs. the Dirac monopole. The solutions we found here is analogous to a Dirac monopole . So we should look for the solution analogous to the $`SU(2)`$ monopole, which will have $`A^1,A^2`$ non-vanishing. These fields are charged under $`U(1)_R`$ and will thus break the $`U(1)`$ symmetry. Fortunately this solution was found in . Actually, the solution in  is a monopole-like solution of a four dimensional gauged supergravity. In order to see that it is the same as the solution we want we should write the supersymmetry variation equations of  in string frame. Their solution only involves three of the dimensions and the susy equations are the same as ours in those three dimensions. So we can simply read off their solution

| $`A=`$ | $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[\sigma ^1a(\rho )d\theta +\sigma ^2a(\rho )\mathrm{sin}\theta d\phi +\sigma ^3\mathrm{cos}\theta d\phi \right]`$ |
| --- | --- |
| $`a(\rho )=`$ | $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\rho }{\mathrm{sinh}2\rho }}`$ |
| $`e^{2g}=`$ | $`\rho \mathrm{coth}2\rho {\displaystyle \frac{\rho ^2}{\mathrm{sinh}^22\rho }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}`$ |
| $`e^{2\varphi }=`$ | $`e^{2\varphi _0}{\displaystyle \frac{2e^g}{\mathrm{sinh}2\rho }}`$ |

(8)
We see that for large $`\rho `$ these functions go as $`e^{2g}\rho `$, $`ao(e^{2\rho })`$ and the dilaton also has the same behaviour as in the previous $`U(1)`$ solution. This implies that the solution has the proper UV behaviour. At the origin $`\rho =0`$ the metric goes as $`e^{2g}\rho ^2`$ so that the metric is non-singular. It is also easy to check that $`A`$ is pure gauge at the origin. In fact this can be seen through the following gauge transformation

$$h=e^{\frac{i\sigma ^1\theta }{2}}e^{\frac{i\sigma ^3\phi }{2}},iA=dhh^1+o(\rho ^2).$$
(9)
Note that in this monopole-like solution there is no Higgs field.

Now that we have found the seven dimensional solution it is possible to lift it up to ten dimensions using the formulas in . In order to write the solution it is useful to choose Euler angles on the sphere $`S^3`$, and define the left invariant one forms by viewing the sphere as the SU(2) group

| $`g`$ | $`=e^{\frac{i\psi \sigma ^3}{2}}e^{\frac{i\stackrel{~}{\theta }\sigma ^1}{2}}e^{\frac{i\varphi \sigma ^3}{2}}`$ |
| --- | --- |
| $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}w^a\sigma ^a`$ | $`=dgg^1`$ |
| $`w^1+iw^2`$ | $`=e^{i\psi }(d\stackrel{~}{\theta }+i\mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{\theta }d\varphi ),w^3=d\psi +cos\stackrel{~}{\theta }d\varphi `$ |

(10)
Using the uplifting formulas in  the ten dimensional solution is

| $`ds_{str}^2=`$ | $`dx_4^2+N\left[d\rho ^2+e^{2g(\rho )}(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\phi ^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \underset{a}{}}(w^aA^a)^2\right]`$ |
| --- | --- |
| $`e^{2\varphi }=`$ | $`e^{2\varphi _0}{\displaystyle \frac{2e^{g(\rho )}}{\mathrm{sinh}2\rho }}`$ |
| $`H^{NS}=`$ | $`N\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(w^1A^1)(w^2A^2)(w^3A^3)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \underset{a}{}}F^a(w^aA^a)\right]`$ |

(11)
The only integration constant in the solution is $`\varphi _0`$, which is the value of the dilaton at $`\rho =0`$. We see that geometrically the resolution of the singularity is the same as that in . If we wrap branes on the $`S^2`$ of a resolved conifold the twisted field theory on the brane is precisely what we had above and the resolution is that the $`S^2`$ shrinks and the $`S^3`$ stays with finite size. In fact our solution is similar to the solution considered in  except that we have only fractional branes and no regular branes.

## 4  The fate of the $`U(1)`$ R-symmetry and the $`N`$ vacua

Let us understand why the $`U(1)`$ symmetry of the solution at infinity is broken to $`Z_{2N}`$. In the coordinates we have chosen this $`U(1)`$ symmetry corresponds to shifting $`\psi \psi +ϵ`$, with $`\psi =\psi +4\pi `$. This symmetry is broken by worldsheet instantons. Naively we would say that instantons of the field theory, which are the strings of the little string theory, are string worldsheets wrapping $`S^2`$. This is almost right except that the instanton also wraps an $`S^2`$ inside $`S^3`$. More precisely, if we parametrize it by the coordinates $`\theta ,\phi `$ of (11) we also we have to set $`\stackrel{~}{\theta }=\theta ,\varphi =\phi ,\psi =const`$. It is possible to have a worldsheet with constant $`\psi `$ thanks to the gauge field $`A^3`$ since what appears in the metric is $`d\psi +\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{\theta }d\varphi \mathrm{cos}\theta d\phi `$. In other words, the coordinate $`\psi `$ is trivially fibered over the worldsheet so so that we can pick a configuration with constant $`\psi `$. There will be a flux of the $`B`$ field over this sphere. This flux however depends on the point $`\psi `$ where the sphere is sitting. In fact we can see that, for large $`\rho `$,

$$\frac{1}{2\pi }_{\psi _2}B\frac{1}{2\pi }_{\psi _1}B=\frac{1}{2\pi }H𝑑\psi 𝑑\theta 𝑑\phi =N(\psi _2\psi _1)$$
(12)
So this flux goes as

$$\frac{1}{2\pi }_\psi B=bN\psi $$
(13)
This flux is the phase that appears in the worldsheet instanton calculation. This should be identified with the phase that appears in the field theory instanton calculation, which is the field theory $`\theta _{FT}`$ angle. We see here that, as we perform a shift in $`\psi `$, the phase changes. This implies that the $`U(1)`$ symmetry is anomalous, it is changing the field theory since it is changing the $`\theta _{FT}`$ angle. By convention we can define the field theory theta angle to be the flux at $`\psi =0`$ and then agree not to change it by perfoming $`U(1)`$ transformations. We see, however, that $`\theta _{FT}`$ is not changed if we do rotations by $`\psi \psi +\frac{2\pi n}{N}`$, with $`0n<2N`$. This is precisely the surviving $`Z_{2N}`$ symmetry in the UV. This symmetry is broken to $`Z_2`$ by the solution (11) . The surviving $`Z_2`$ is just $`\psi \psi +2\pi `$ which does not change the solution (11) .

We should now explain why we have precisely $`N`$ solutions, or $`N`$ vacua, for each value of $`\theta _{FT}`$. First we notice that the worldsheet that we were talking about around (12) is contractible in the full geometry. In order to see this we can bring the sphere close to $`\rho =0`$ in the geometry (11) and then perform the gauge transformation (9), which amounts to a coordinate transformation on the three sphere. After this, the worldsheet is wrapped on the two sphere that collapses to zero. If the geometry is to be smooth the flux on the collapsing spherical worldsheet better be a multiple of $`2\pi `$. This will not happen in general. For example, for the solution (11) we see that if we pick a worldsheet wrapping the sphere at $`\psi =0`$ and we transport it to the origin, we do not pick any extra flux since the radial components of $`H`$ in (11) projected to the worldsheet worldvolume are proportional to $`\mathrm{sin}\psi `$ and we are at $`\psi =0`$. So the flux at the origin is the same as the flux at infinity which in turn is equal to $`\theta _{FT}`$. So the solution (11) is a good solution only for $`\theta _{FT}=0`$. Which are the other solutions?. It is easy to see how to generate new solutions. All we have to do is to rotate the gauge fields by a $`U(1)`$ transformation and replace the gauge fields in (11) by

$$A^{}=e^{\frac{i\psi _0\sigma ^3}{2}}Ae^{\frac{i\psi _0\sigma ^2}{2}}$$
(14)
This does not change the gauge fields at infinity, so it does not modify the solution in the UV. Now we can see that if we have a worldsheet wrapping near $`\rho =\mathrm{}`$ at the angle $`\psi _0`$ then this worldsheet can be contracted to the origin with no change in flux, since now the radial component of $`H`$ projected onto the worldsheet is proportional to $`\mathrm{sin}(\psi \psi _0)`$. But the flux of this worldsheet is $`\theta _{FT}N\psi _0`$. It is this flux that should be a multiple of $`2\pi `$ so we see that we have $`N`$ different solutions corresponding to $`\psi _0=\frac{\theta _{FT}}{N}+\frac{2\pi n}{N}`$ with $`0n<N`$.

Let us summarize this discussion. From the purely metric point of view, all the solutions with arbitrary values of $`\psi _0`$ are non-singular, but once we consider the $`B`$ fields we see that only $`N`$ of the solutions are non-singular.

It is easy to see what the gravity dual of a domain wall separating two vacua is. Physicaly we expect it to be something localized near $`\rho 0`$ since the theory is the same in the UV on both sides of the domain wall. But when we cross the domain wall we get two different solutions with different values of $`\psi _0`$ and we get a change in the flux of $`B`$ over the contractible sphere by $`k`$ units if $`\mathrm{\Delta }\psi _0=\frac{2\pi k}{N}`$. This implies that the domain wall should be $`k`$ NS 5 branes wrapping $`S^3`$.

It is also possible to see how we can make $`N`$ of those fivebranes disappear. This is easier to see from the seven dimensional point of view. We said that the seven dimensional theory in the variables of  has a three form potential. The fivebranes wrapped on $`S^3`$ are electrically charged under this three form potential. In the seven dimensional lagrangian there is a coupling of the form

$$iNA_3Tr(FF)$$
(15)
where $`F`$ is the field strength for the $`SU(2)_R`$ gauge fields. So we see that if we have $`N`$ fivebranes we can replace them by an instanton of the $`SU(2)`$ gauge field and then expanding the instanton to infinite size we see that this kind of domain wall can disappear. This effect is of course familiar in the heterotic string context where we can transform an NS fivebrane into an instanton in the gauge group . In that case one fivebrane was the same as one instanton.

## 5  Towards the pure $`𝒩=1`$ theory

If we intend to decouple the four dimensional theory we will have to take a limit where we go to scales much lower than the little string mass scale. As shown in  we need to S-dualize the gravity solution and switch to a D-fivebrane description.

The S-dual metric to that in (11) is

| $`ds_{str}^2=`$ | $`e^{\varphi _D}\left[dx_4^2+N(d\rho ^2+e^{2g(\rho )}d\mathrm{\Omega }_2^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \underset{a}{}}(w^aA^a)^2)\right]`$ |
| --- | --- |
| $`e^{2\varphi _D}=`$ | $`e^{2\varphi _{D,0}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sinh}2\rho }{2e^{g(\rho )}}}`$ |

(16)
and the NS $`H`$ field becomes a RR $`H`$ field. Everything that we said in the previous section about worldsheet instantons translates into D-string instantons.

In this description an external quark is a fundamental string that comes in from infinity. When we have a quark anti-quark pair and we separate them by a large distance we see that we find a finite string tension from the point of view of the four dimensional theory equal to

$$T_s=\frac{e^{\varphi _{D,0}}}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}$$
(17)
The masses of glueballs and Kaluza-Klein states on the spheres is, in the supergravity approximation,

$$M_{glueballs}^2M_{KK}^2\frac{1}{N\alpha ^{}}$$
(18)
Finally the tension of a domain wall interpolating between the $`n`$th and $`n+1`$th vacua, which is now a D5 brane, is

$$T_{wall}N^{3/2}e^{2\varphi _{D,0}}$$
(19)
Fundamental strings can end on these domain walls . The baryon vertex is a D3 brane wrapped on $`S^3`$. A magnetic monopole source is a D-3 brane wrapping the sphere that the worldsheet instantons were wrapping in the previous section and extending in the radial and time directions. They are screened because, since the sphere is contractible, each member of a monopole anti-monopole pair can be wrapped in the three dimensional space parametrized by $`\rho `$ and the contractible sphere.

We see that in order to decouple the scale of the string tension from the scale of the KK states we need $`e^{\varphi _{D,0}}N1`$. This goes beyond the gravity approximation, which requires $`e^{\varphi _{D,0}}N1`$, but it seems that we could still use this metric to formulate a string theory. This string theory should be such that it essentially has no excitations on $`S^2`$ or $`S^3`$. This is plausible since the sizes of those spheres is smaller than the string scale. Presumably we should be able to replace the six dimensional part of the geometry by a Liouville-like theory; since this geometry is similar to the near conifold geometry, this sounds plausible. In fact, for the near conifold geometry it was suggested that the sigma model can be replaced, for some calculations, by the $`c=1`$ (super) Liouville theory. Indeed, in  it was proved that the CFT is a Kazama- Suzuki $`SL(2)/U(1)`$ coset model with level $`k=3`$. This theory was studied in the context of non-critical bosonic strings in ref. and the relation between bosonic strings and SCFT of a conifold agrees with the results of .

It would be nice to understand the mapping to a Liouville-like theory in the case that we have RR fields. A nice feature of this RR sigma model is that it seems possible to choose light cone gauge. In AdS it is hard to choose light cone gauge, because in Poincare coordinates we have a horizon. In this case there is no horizon and the light cone theory should be better defined. In the purely four dimensional theory we do not expect to have any dimensionless parameter. In our case we have a dimensionless parameter which is $`\varphi _0`$, this parameter is related to the ratio of the QCD string tension (or mass scale) and the six dimensional gauge coupling, or six dimensional scale of the little string theory. Presumably once we exchange the spheres by a Liouville theory we would find that the string coupling is fixed in the IR and of order $`1/N`$.

Another related point is the precise coefficient for the beta function. In the 5-brane theory it is natural to define the scale as $`g_{00}`$ in D-string metric, since that will be the energy of a massive string mode sitting at position $`\rho `$. This gives a relation between the scale in the field theory and the position $`\rho `$ of the form $`\mu e^{\rho /2}`$. When we look at the definition of the four dimensional string coupling in (3) we see that $`1/(g_4^2N)\mathrm{log}\mu /\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$. But the coefficient is not the correct one. It is interesting that if we go to the five dimensional Einstein frame metric and we define the scale as $`\mu ^2g_{00}^{5,E}`$ then we get precisely the right $`\beta `$ function with the right numerical coefficient . We could not find any precise reason for choosing this UV/IR relation. In order to determine the precise relation it seems that we should know the precise string theory and sigma model.

In summary, this solution seems to provide a starting point for constructing the large N limit of pure $`𝒩=1`$ Yang-Mills. We expect that the $`S^3`$ and $`S^2`$ would disappear from the sigma model, leaving only the radial direction, and probably also an angular direction, representing the $`U(1)`$ symmetry. The final picture would have the flavor of that in , but it seems crucial to have RR fields in order to generate a warp factor in string frame.

## Acknowledgements

We would like to thank O. Aharony, I. Klebanov, J. Polchinski, M. Strassler, A. Strominger and C. Vafa for discussions.

The research of C.N. was supported by CONICET. The research of J.M. was supported in part by DOE grant DE-FGO2-91ER40654, NSF grant PHY-9513835, the Sloan Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. We also thank the Aspen Center for Physics where part of this work was done.


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# Topology of the Galaxy Distribution in the Hubble Deep Fields

## 1 INTRODUCTION

An important prediction of typical inflationary models is that the matter fluctuation field has a Gaussian random phase distribution. At large linear scales where the galaxy distribution is presumely still in the linear regime and therefore keeping the statistics of the primordial fluctuation field, studies of the topology of the galaxy distribution can test such predictions. At smaller non-linear scales where the galaxy distribution depends sensitively on the small-scale physics, a study of topology can give us information on the mechanism of galaxy formation and evolution as well as on cosmology.

During the past 15 years topology of large scale structures has been measured by many authors using various observational samples following after the initial work of Gott, Melott & Dickinson (1986), Hamilton, Gott & Weinberg (1986), and Gott, Weinberg & Melott (1987). Among these, topology measures for two-dimensional fields have been introduced by Coles & Barrow (1987), Melott et al. (1989) and Gott et al. (1990), and applied to observational samples like the angular distribution of galaxies on the sky (Coles & Plionis 1991; Gott et al. 1992), the distribution of galaxies in slices of the universe (Park et al. 1992; Colley 1997) and the temperature fluctuation field of the Cosmic Microwave Background (Coles 1988; Gott et al. 1990; Smoot et al. 1994; Kogut et al. 1996; Colley, Gott & Park 1996; Park et al. 1998). In the first two cases where the samples dominantly include nearby galaxies, the topology of two-dimensional galaxy distributions as revealed by the genus or the Euler-Poincaré characteristic statistics, is consistent with the random phase Gaussian distribution with a possible weak ‘meat-ball’ topology.

The HDF images (Williams et al. 1996) taken by the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC-2) on the Hubble Space Telescope, have given us an unprecedently deep view of the high redshift universe. One can easily detect objects with AB magnitudes (Oke 1974) down to $`2829`$ (Madau et al. 1996) and with an angular resolution of about $`0.05^{\prime \prime }`$. Important issues one can address from the HDF data include the discovery of proto-galaxies forming at high redshifts, or delineating the epoch of galaxy formation (Steidel et al. 1996; Clements & Couch 1996; Park & Kim 1998). Another important problem one can study from the HDF data is the properties of galaxies at high redshifts, or the evolution of galaxies. This can be done by looking at numbers, colors, and clustering of galaxies as a function of redshift.

In this paper we study the topology of the distribution of galaxies identified in the HDF North and South and having either spectroscopic or photometric redshifts (Fernández-Soto, Lanzetta, & Yahil 1999, hereafter FLY99; Lanzetta et al. 1999). From these data sets we hope to study the topology of the galaxy distribution at high redshifts.

## 2 Topology Measure

### 2.1 The Genus

We use the two-dimensional genus statistic introduced by Melott et al. (1989) as a quantitative measure of topology of the galaxy distribution in the HDFs. The study most similar to our work is that of Gott et al. (1992) who have measured the genus of angular distributions of nearby galaxies in the UGC and ESO catalogs. Coles & Plionis (1991) have also measured the Euler-Poincaré characteristic, which is equivalent to the genus in the limit of negligible sample boundary effects, for the Lick catalog.

The two-dimensional genus is defined as (Gott et al. 1992)

$$G=(\mathrm{number}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{isolated}\mathrm{high}\mathrm{density}\mathrm{regions})(\mathrm{number}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{isolated}\mathrm{low}\mathrm{density}\mathrm{regions}).$$
$`(1)`$
When a two-dimensional distribution is given, the Gauss-Bonnett theorem relates the genus of isodensity contours with the line integral of the local curvature $`\kappa `$ (Gott et al. 1990)

$$G=\frac{1}{2\pi }\kappa 𝑑s.$$
$`(2)`$
In the case of a Gaussian random field the genus per unit area is known to be (Melott et al. 1989; Coles 1988)

$$g=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^{3/2}}\frac{k^2}{2}\nu e^{\nu ^2/2},$$
$`(3)`$
where $`\nu `$ is the threshold density for the isodensity contour in units of standard deviations from the mean, $`k^2=k^2P_2(k)d^2k/P_2(k)d^2k`$ and $`P_2(k)`$ is the smoothed two-dimensional power spectrum. In practice, we are not interested in the one-point distribution of the density field, and therefore use the label $`\nu _A`$ which parametrizes the area faction by

$$f_\mathrm{A}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}_{\nu _A}^{\mathrm{}}e^{t^2/2}𝑑t.$$
$`(4)`$
We calculate the genus from $`\nu _A=3`$ to 3 with an interval of 0.2.

When the power spectrum of the three-dimensional galaxy distribution is of the power-law form $`P_3(k)k^n`$ and when the thickness of the two-dimensional slice is much larger or smaller than the smoothing length of the Gaussian filter $`W(r)e^{r^2/2R_G^2}`$, there exist simple analytic formulae for the amplitude (Melott et al. 1989)

$$k^2=\frac{F(n)}{R_G^2},$$
$`(5)`$
where $`F(n)=(n+2)/2`$ for $`n>2`$ and $`0`$ for $`3<n2`$ for slices with thickness much larger than the smoothing length $`R_G`$, and $`F(n)=1`$ for $`n1`$ and $`(n+3)/2`$ for $`3<n<1`$ for thin slices. The thick slice approximation is relevant for maps of galaxies projected on the sky.

### 2.2 The Genus-Related statistics

Since the genus-threshold density relation for Gaussian fields is known, non-Gaussian behaviour of a field can be detected from deviations from the relation. We quantify such deviations by genus-related statistics. The first is the shift of the genus curve $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ (Park et al. 1992). We measure the shift parameter from the observed genus curve by minimizing the $`\chi ^2`$ between the data and the fitting function

$$G=A\nu ^{}e^{\nu ^2/2},$$
$`(6)`$
where $`\nu ^{}=\nu \mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ and the amplitude $`A`$ of the genus curve is allowed to have different values at negative and positive $`\nu ^{}`$. The $`\chi ^2`$-minimization is performed over the range $`1.0\nu 1.0`$.

The second statistic is the asymmetry parameter which measures the difference in the amplitude of the genus curve in the positive and negative thresholds (i.e. the difference between the numbers of clumps and voids). The asymmetry parameter is defined as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }g=A_CA_V,$$
$`(7)`$
where

$$A_C=_{\nu _1}^{\nu _2}g_{\mathrm{obs}}𝑑\nu /_{\nu _1}^{\nu _2}g_{\mathrm{fit}}𝑑\nu ,$$
$`(8)`$
and likewise for $`A_V`$. The integration is limited to $`2\nu 0.4`$ for $`A_V`$ and to $`0.4\nu 2`$ for $`A_C`$. The overall amplitude $`A`$ of the best-fit genus curve $`g_{\mathrm{fit}}`$ is found from the $`\chi ^2`$-fitting over the range $`2.0\nu 2.0`$. $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ is positive when high-density regions are divided into many clumps while the low-density regions are merged into fewer voids. For an observed genus curve, we therefore measure the best-fit amplitude $`A`$, the shift parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$, and the asymmetry parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$.

## 3 Analysis of the HDF Data

### 3.1 The HDF data

We use the photometric redshift data of galaxies in the HDF North (hereafter HDFN) published by FLY99. The catalog has 1067 galaxies with photometric and/or spectroscopic redshifts. We use the spectroscopic redshifts whenever available. We limit the sample to $`z2`$, which leaves us with 820 galaxies because the redshift space distribution of galaxies sharply drops at $`z2`$ and because the photometric redshift starts to have relatively large error at $`z2`$ (FLY99). We then drop the Planetary Camera image as well as the edges of the Wide Field Camera images where the magnitude limit to the sample is bright, i.e. $`AB(8140)=26.0`$.

In Figure 1 the long-dashed lines delineate the inner part of the WFPC2 images which encloses 714 galaxies with $`AB(8140)28.0`$ (hereafter the S-zone; see dash lines in Fig. 1 of FLY99). The genus is actually measured in the region 100 pixels inside these boundaries (hereafter the G-zone; thick solid lines in Figure 1) after the galaxy distribution is smoothed in the S-zone. There are 605 galaxies with $`z2`$ and $`AB(8140)28.0`$ in the G-zone. To see the possible evolution effects we divide the HDFN sample into three overlapping redshift slice subsamples, each of which contains about 300 galaxies in the G-zone. Table 1 lists the definitions of these subsamples together with the total sample. The middle slice overlaps with the first and the third ones.

The photometric redshift data in the HDF South (HDFS) field has been obtained from a web page11affiliation: http://www.ess.sunysb.edu/astro/hdfs (Lanzetta et al. 1999; Yahata et al. 2000). This catalog is close to complete down to $`AB(8140)28.0`$ (Fernández-Soto 2000). The original catalog contains 1275 redshifts. The magnitude limit of $`AB(8140)=28.0`$ and redshift limit of $`z=3`$ leave us with 727 galaxies, and 614(530) of these galaxies are within the S(G)-zones, respectively. This whole HDFS sample is further divided into three redshift space slices with roughly 265 galaxies each as described in Table 1. Figure 2 shows the HDFS galaxies satisfying the magnitude and redshift limits, and the boundaries defining the S- and G-zones.

### 3.2 Results

To measure the genus the discrete distribution of galaxies must be smoothed by an appropriate filter. We first make a mask which has the value 1 within the S-zone and 0 outside. We ignore the small regions contaminated by stars and relatively big galaxies in the HDFs because taking into account those regions to the mask turns out to have negligible effects on the genus results because our smoothing lengths are large compared to them. We first smooth the mask over a smoothing length using the Gaussian filter. At the same time the distribution of the HDF galaxies in the S-zone are smoothed over the same length and divided by the smoothed mask to yield the smooth galaxy density field (Melott et al. 1989). Then the genus is measured from the smoothed density array only within the G-zone. We use the CONTOUR2D code (Weinberg 1988) to measure the genus. The code has been modified so that the genus at each threshold level is an average over three genus values with the threshold levels $`\nu `$ shifted by 0 and $`\pm 0.03`$.

We have chosen the Gaussian smoothing radius $`R_G`$ as the half-width at half maximum of the Gaussian function, and set $`R_G=\overline{d}/\sqrt{2\mathrm{l}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}}=0.849\overline{d}`$. This is slightly smaller than the mean separation $`\overline{d}`$, but larger than the ‘e-folding smoothing length’ $`\lambda _e=\overline{d}/\sqrt{2}=0.707\overline{d}`$ used in some studies.

Figure 3 and 4 show the genus curves (filled dots) for our HDFN and HDFS samples and their best fitting Gaussian genus curves (solid curves), respectively. Error bars are estimated from 20 bootstrap resamplings of the galaxies. Small open circles are the genus curves averaged over 100 realizations of Poisson distributions with the same number of galaxies. In Table 2 we summarize the genus-related statistics $`A,\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ measured from each HDF subsample. The 68% uncertainty limits are again estimated from the genus-related statistics measured from 20 bootstrap resamplings of galaxies. The mean amplitude of the genus curves from 100 Poisson realizations of the distribution of the mock HDF galaxies in each sample is also included.

## 4 Discussion

The genus curves of the HDF samples shown in Fig. 3 and 4 and their statistics listed in Table 2 indicate that the distribution of the HDF galaxies is consistent with a Gaussian random phase distribution because most subsamples have shift and asymmetry parameters consistent with zero. The only statistically significant behaviour of the genus curves is their lower amplitudes compared to the corresponding Poisson distributions. In the north samples this coherence of the galaxy distribution is mainly caused by the shallow slice with $`0z<1.1`$. The fact that the genus curve has an amplitude significantly lower than the Poisson one indicates that the smoothed distribution of the HDF galaxies does have a real signal.

Therefore, even though the our HDF samples are radial projections of galaxies in very long thin rods, the galaxy distribution in each sample is not merely a projection of statistically independent galaxies, but maintains a finite clustering signal. To check if this should be the case, we need to know the angular covariance function (CF) of galaxies at high redshifts. Gott and Turner (1979) have found that the angular CF of galaxies at the present epoch continues inward without any break with a slope of $`0.8`$ (i.e. $`w(\theta )\theta ^{0.8}`$) down to the smallest scale measured, a comoving scale of 0.0033 $`h^1`$ Mpc. For comparison at the median redshift $`z=1.1`$ of the HDFN (for an Einstein-de Sitter cosmology) the smoothing lengths $`R_G=3.8^{\prime \prime }`$ and $`5.4^{\prime \prime }`$ correspond to comoving scales of $`0.034h^1`$ Mpc and $`0.049h^1`$ Mpc, respectively (or over an order of magnitude larger). Assuming that the CF is constant in the comoving space (The CF does not grow greatly from $`z=1.1`$ to the present in the flat lambda model with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=1/3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=2/3`$ popular today, for example.), from Gott and Turner’s present epoch CF from the Zwicky catalog $`w(\theta )17.3(\theta /1^{})^{0.8}`$ we estimate

$$w(\theta )=0.494(\theta /1.7^{\prime \prime })^{0.8}=(\theta /0.70^{\prime \prime })^{0.8},$$
$`(9)`$
as the depth of the sample changes from $`D_{}=53h^1`$ Mpc for the Zwicky catalog to $`D_{}=1860h^1`$ Mpc for the HDFN sample. Then the average fractional excess number counts of galaxies within a smoothing area around a galaxy is approximately

$$\frac{\delta N}{N}=\frac{1}{\pi R_G^2}_0^{R_G}w(\theta )2\pi \theta 𝑑\theta =\frac{5}{3}(R_G/0.70^{\prime \prime })^{0.8}.$$
$`(10)`$
Since $`R_G=3.8^{\prime \prime }`$ for the HDFN, $`\frac{\delta N}{N}=0.43`$. For comparison, a Poisson distribution would have a RMS fluctuation of $`\frac{\delta N}{N}=1/\sqrt{N}=(R_G/\overline{d})^1/\sqrt{\pi }=0.66`$ where we used $`N=\pi R_G^2/\overline{d}^2`$ given the mean galaxy separation $`\overline{d}`$. Therefore, we expect the signal-to-noise ratio in the HDFN sample to be about 0.65, so there still remains some detectable physical clustering of galaxies in the field. A lower limit on the signal-to-noise ratio could be established by assuming that clusters present at $`z=1.1`$ remained at the same physical size to the present, representing a growth of the amplitude CF in comoving coordinates proportional to $`a^{20.8}=a^{1.2}`$ where $`a=1/(1+z)`$. That would give a $`S/N=0.27`$.

We may also estimate the signal-to-noise ratio in the smoothed maps directly from the topology statistics. The amplitude of the genus curve is proportional to $`F(n)`$ from equation (5). The noise contribution from a Poisson distribution of galaxies corresponds to a power-law index $`n=0`$ and $`F(n)=1`$. If the signal is characterized by an angular CF with $`w(\theta )\theta ^{0.8}`$. This corresponds to a power-law index $`n=1.2`$ and $`F(n)=0.4`$. Thus if we were observing pure signal we would expect $`A=0.4A_{\mathrm{Poisson}}`$. If we were observing pure noise we would expect $`A=A_{\mathrm{Poisson}}`$. We actually observe for the HDFN a value of $`A=0.77A_{\mathrm{Poisson}}`$ suggesting, by linear interpolation, a value of $`S/N=0.62`$. Repeating this calculation for the HDFS where we observe $`A=0.86A_{\mathrm{Poisson}}`$ gives a $`S/N=0.30`$, both being consistent with the back-of-the-envelope calculations given in the previous paragraph.

We have also found that the shift parameter in Table 2 is consistent with zero shift. Actually the HDFN-1 and HDFS samples show significant bubble ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu >0`$) and meat-ball shifts, respectively. But the shift averaged over different subsamples is consistent with zero. The asymmetry parameter is also consistent with zero. Even though the HDFN-3 sample has a significant excess of the genus curve amplitude in the positive thresholds (more clusters than voids at the same volume fraction), the mean asymmetry parameter for all subsamples is still within one standard deviation from zero.

This work was supported by the KOSEF grant (1999-2-113-001-5) and the NSF grant AST-9900772. CBP would like to thank Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics for the hospitality during this work. The authors thank Dr. Michael Vogeley for helpful comments and Dr. Alberto Fernández-Soto for sending us unpublished results on the HDFS photometric redshift data.