The conformal brane-scan: an update

Abstract

Generalizing the "The Membrane at the End of the Universe", a 1987 paper "Supersingletons" by Blencowe and the author conjectured the existence of BPS p-brane configurations (p=2, 3, 4 ,5) and corresponding CFTs on the boundary of anti-de Sitter space with symmetries appearing in Nahm's classification of superconformal algebras: OSp(N|4)~N=8, 4, 2, 1; SU(2,2|N)~N= 4, 2, 1; F^2(4); OSp(8^*|N), ~N=4, 2$. This correctly predicted the D3-brane with SU(2,2|4) on AdS_5 x S^5 and the M5-brane with OSp(8^*|4) on AdS_7 x S^4, in addition to the known M2-brane with OSp(8|4) on AdS_4 x S^7. However, finding non-singular AdS solutions matching the other symmetries was less straightforward. Here we perform a literature search and confirm that all of the empty slots have now been filled, thanks to a number of extra ingredients including warped products and massive Type IIA. Orbifolds, orientifolds and S-folds also play a part providing examples not predicted: SU(2,2|3), OSp(3|4), OSp(5|4) and OSp(6|4) but not OSp(7|4). We also examine the status of p=(0,1) configurations.