S-folds and holographic RG flows on the D3-brane

Abstract

Type IIB S-folds of the form AdS4 × S1 × S5 are conjectured to correspond to new strongly coupled three-dimensional CFT’s on a localised interface of SYM4. In this work we construct holographic RG flows on the D3-brane that generically connect anisotropic deformations of SYM4 in the UV to various S-fold CFT’s in the IR with different amounts of supersymmetry and flavour symmetries. Examples of holographic RG flows between S-fold CFT’s are also presented. Lastly a geometric interpretation of axion deformations is provided in terms of monodromies on the internal S5 when moving around the S1. Special attention is paid to the monodromy-induced patterns of symmetry breaking as classified by the mapping torus Th(S5).