S-folds and AdS3 flows from the D3-brane

Abstract

We investigate supersymmetric flows in type IIB supergravity that preserve an SO(2, 2) space-time symmetry and asymptote to AdS5× S5 at both endpoints. The flows are constructed as Janus-type ℝ × AdS3 BPS domain-walls in the effective four-dimensional [SO(1, 1) × SO(6)] ⋉ ℝ12 gauged maximal supergravity describing the massless sector of type IIB supergravity compactified on S1 × S5. The compactification includes an S-duality hyperbolic twist along the S1 which, when combined with an appropriate choice of boundary conditions for the running scalars, generates special flows that develop an S-fold regime at their core, thus enhancing the space-time symmetry there to SO(2, 3). Via the AdS/CFT correspondence, the flows constructed here are conjectured to describe conformal interfaces in a circle compactification of $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 4 SYM4.