Giant gravitons in Dp-brane holography

A bstract We consider half BPS operators in maximally supersymmetric Yang Mills (SYM) in p + 1 dimensions. These operators satisfy trace relations that are identical to those discussed in the p = 3 case ( $$ \mathcal{N} $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mi>N</mml:mi> </mml:math> = 4 SYM). Nevertheless, the bulk explanation of these trace relations must differ from the p = 3 case as their holographic duals are not AdS spacetimes. We identify giant graviton solutions in the dual holographic backgrounds for −1 ≤ p ≤ 4. In the ’t Hooft limit, these giants are D(6 – p )-branes that wrap a S 6− p ⊂ S 8− p . We also follow the giants into the strong coupling region where they become other branes. Despite propagating in a non-AdS geometry, we find that the branes “feel” like they are in AdS. This is closely related to the emergent scaling symmetry present in these boundary theories.