S-folds and $AdS_{3}$ 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 $AdS_{5} \times S^5$ at both endpoints. The flows are constructed as Janus-type $\mathbb{R} \times AdS_{3}$ BPS domain-walls in the effective four-dimensional $[SO(1,1)\times{S}O(6)]\ltimes\mathbb{R}^{12}$ gauged maximal supergravity describing the massless sector of type IIB supergravity compactified on $S^1 \times S^{5}$. The compactification includes an S-duality hyperbolic twist along the $S^1$ 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 $\mathcal{N}=4$ $\textrm{SYM}_{4}$.