Gravitational free energy in topological AdS/CFT

Abstract

We define and study a holographic dual to the topological twist of $\mathcal{N}=4$ gauge theories on Riemannian three-manifolds. The gravity duals are solutions to four-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=4$ gauged supergravity, where the three-manifold arises as a conformal boundary. Following our previous work, we show that the renormalized gravitational free energy of such solutions is independent of the boundary three-metric, as required for a topological theory. We then go further, analyzing the geometry of supersymmetric bulk solutions. Remarkably, we are able to show that the gravitational free energy of any smooth four-manifold filling of any three-manifold is always zero. Aided by this analysis, we prove a similar result for topological AdS$_5$/CFT$_4$. We comment on the implications of these results for the large $N$ limits of topologically twisted gauge theories in three and four dimensions, including the ABJM theory and $\mathcal{N}=4$ $SU(N)$ super-Yang-Mills, respectively.