In this paper we find various new backgrounds in Type IIB, IIA and M-theory with an AdS 3 -factor. The solutions are smooth and preserve small amounts of SUSY. These new backgrounds are found by application of non-Abelian T-duality (sometimes combined with T-duality) on the supergravity solution dual to the Klebanov-Witten CFT compactified to two dimensions. The field theory aspects encoded by these backgrounds are studied. We give a detailed account of conserved charges, central charges, entanglement entropy and Wilson loops. Further, we present a possible field theory interpretation for our backgrounds.

In this paper we study the conjectural relation between confinement in a quantum field theory and the presence of a phase transition in its corresponding entanglement entropy. We determine the sufficient conditions for the latter and compare to the conditions for having a confining Wilson line. We demonstrate the relation in several examples. Superficially, it may seem that certain confining field theories with a non-local high energy behavior, like the dual of D5 branes wrapping a two-cycle, do not admit the corresponding phase transition. However, upon closer inspection we find that, through the introduction of a regulating UV-cutoff, new eight-surface configurations appear, that satisfy the correct concavity condition and recover the phase transition in the entanglement entropy. We show that a local-UV-completion to the confining non-local theories has a similar effect to that of the aforementioned cutoff.

We consider two classes of backgrounds of Type IIB supergravity obtained by wrapping D5-branes on a two-cycle inside the conifold. The field theory dual exhibits confinement and, in addition, a region in which the dynamics is walking, at least in the weak sense that the running of the coupling is anomalously slow. We introduce quenched matter in the fundamental, modelled by probe D7branes which wrap an internal three-dimensional manifold and lie at the equator of the transverse two-sphere. In the space spanned by the remaining internal angle and the radial coordinate the branes admit two embeddings. The first one is U-shaped: the branes merge at some finite value of the radius. The second one is disconnected and extends along the entire radial direction at fixed angular separation. We interpret these two configurations as corresponding to chiral-symmetry breaking and preserving phases, respectively.We present a simple diagnostic tool to examine the classical stability of the embedding, based on the concavity/convexity conditions for the relevant thermodynamic potentials. We use this criterion to show that U-shaped probes that explore the walking region are unstable, hence providing a dynamical origin for the tachyonic mode found in the literature. Whenever this occurs, the disconnected solution becomes favored energetically. We find that in one of the two classes of backgrounds the U-shaped embedding is always unstable, and thus never realised dynamically. Consequently, these models cannot be used to describe chiral-symmetry breaking. In the second category of solutions, our analysis reveals the presence of a first-order phase transition between chiral-symmetry broken and restored phases. Interestingly, this is in the same class that contains a parametrically light scalar in the spectrum of glueballs of the dual field theory. CONTENTS

We study a non-supersymmetric deformation of the field theory dual to the baryonic branch of Klebanov-Strassler. Using a combination of analytical (series expansions) and numerical methods we construct non-supersymmetric backgrounds that smoothly interpolate between the desired UV and IR behaviors. We calculate various observables of the field theory and propose a picture of soft breaking by gaugino masses that is consistent with the various calculations on the string side. 1 pystephen@swansea.ac.uk

We consider D7-branes probing several classes of Type IIB supergravity backgrounds, and study the classical problem of finding equilibrium configurations for the embedding functions. This is a method employed to model chiral symmetry breaking in the gravity dual of a strongly-coupled, confining gauge theory. We unveil and discuss a new type of phase transition appearing in the gravity systems, which is similar in nature and meaning to bulk phase transitions on the lattice. The existence of this genre of phase transition puts a new, intrinsic limit on the region of parameter space which can be used to study the physics of the dual field theory. We complete the analysis of D7 embeddings in wrapped-D5 supergravity backgrounds, and explain in what cases chiral-symmetry breaking is sensibly modelled by the gravity construction.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures; v2 minor corrections, results and analysis unaffected; version to appear in Phys.Rev.

We study the two-dimensional space of supergravity solutions corresponding to nonsupersymmetric deformations of the baryonic branch of Klebanov-Strassler. By combining analytical methods with a numerical survey of the parameter space, we find that this solution space includes as limits the softly-broken N = 1 solutions of Gubser et al. and those of Dymarsky and Kuperstein. We also identify a one-dimensional family of solutions corresponding to a natural non-supersymmetric generalisation of Klebanov-Strassler, and one corresponding to the limit in which supersymmetry is completely absent, even in the far UV. For almost all of the parameter space we find indications that much of the structure of the supersymmetric baryonic branch survives.