Abstract
We analyze the vacuum structure of Ai = 3 , D = 4 supergravity coupled to 9 vector multiplets with gauge group SO(3) x SU(3). Aside from the central Ai = 3 AdS4 vacuum at the origin, on which the supermultiplet structure reproduces the massless sector of M theory compactified on N0 ,1 ,0 , we find a rich structure of AdS4 vacua preserving Ai = 0, 1, 2, 3 supersymmetry.
These new vacua are arranged in a manifold spanned by scalar fields corresponding to exactly marginal deformations of the dual CFT. This manifold has the form T-3/K , where K is a discrete subgroup of the gauge group: Ai = 3, 2, and 1 vacua correspond, respectively, to a point, a line and a surface in the three-dimensional vacuum manifold.
We study RG flows from the central Ai = 3 vacuum and elaborate on the possible higher dimensional origin of the new vacua. For the reader's convenience we also provide a review of the embedding tensor formulation of D = 4 , Ai = 3 gauged supergravities.
In particular, we provide formulas involving the fermion shift tensors and mass matrices in Ai = 3 theories, which can be applied to a generic gauging.