An Exact Holographic RG Flow Between 2d Conformal Fixed Points

We describe a supersymmetric RG flow between conformal fixed points of a two-dimensional quantum field theory as an analytic domain wall solution of the three-dimensional SO(4)×SO(4) gauged supergravity. Its ultraviolet fixed point is an N=(4, 4) superconformal field theory related, through the double D1-D5 system, to theories modeling the statistical mechanics of black holes. The flow is driven by a relevant operator of conformal dimension ∆= 32 which breaks conformal symmetry and breaks supersymmetry down to N=(1, 1), and sends the theory to an infrared conformal fixed point with central charge cIR = cUV/2. Using the supergravity description, we compute counterterms, one-point functions and fluctuation equations for inert scalars and vector fields, providing the complete framework to compute two-point correlation functions of the corresponding operators throughout the flow in the two-dimensional quantum field theory. This produces a toy model for flows of N = 4 super Yang-Mills theory in 3+1 dimensions, where conformal-to-conformal flows have resisted analytical solution. December 2001 [email protected] [email protected]