The BPS spectrum of monopole operators in ABJM: Towards a field theory description of the giant torus

Abstract

We study the BPS spectrum of monopole operators in ABJM theory. First we work out the complete spectrum of the chiral ring by using a semiclassical analysis of the field theory compactified on a two sphere. By properly taking into account the full quantization condition of monopole charges, we show that the moduli space of ABJM U(N) × U(N) theory with Chern-Simons level k,-k is a particular ℤ k cover of the symmetric product of Sym N(ℂ4/ℤ k). This modification applies to just one brane and the other N - 1 branes see the usual ℂ4/ ℤ k geometry, which implies the dual gravity is still AdS 4 × S7/ℤ k. As a byproduct of our analysis we show that the dibaryon operators are gauge invariant and dual to D4 brane giants. We also work out in detail the spectrum of fluctuations around half-BPS monopole configurations and we find candidate states for a dual BPS configuration to the giant torus solution found by Nishioka and Takayanagi in the supergravity limit. We also discuss more general BPS states.