BPS Soliton Solutions of a D3-brane Action

Abstract

The world-volume action of a probe D3-brane in $AdS_5 \times S^5$ with $N$ units of flux has the field content, symmetries, and dualities of the $U(1)$ factor of ${\cal N} = 4$ $U(N+1)$ super Yang--Mills theory, spontaneously broken to $U(N) \times U(1)$ by being on the Coulomb branch, with the massive fields integrated out. Thus, it might be the exact effective action (a highly effective action), or else a useful approximation to it. We construct an $SL(2,Z)$ multiplet of BPS soliton solutions of the D3-brane action and show that in the $N=1$ case they correspond to the electrically charged states that have been integrated out as well as magnetic monopoles and dyons. Their charges are uniformly spread on a spherical surface, a soliton bubble, which can be interpreted as a phase boundary. This picture is consistent with previous results in the string theory and field theory literature.

18 pages; v2: Additional references and discussion; v3: One more reference and minor improvements