Enhancons, Fuzzy Spheres and Multi-Monopoles

Abstract

We study the `enhancon', a spherical hypersurface apparently made of D-branes, which arises in string theory studies of large N SU(N) pure gauge theories with eight supercharges. When the gauge theory is 2+1 dimensional, the enhancon is an S^2. A relation to charge N BPS multi-monopoles is exploited to uncover many of its detailed properties. It is simply a spherical slice through an Atiyah-Hitchin-like submanifold of the charge $N$ BPS monopole moduli space. In the form of Nahm data, it is built from the N dimensional irreducible representation of SU(2). In this sense the enhancon is a non-commutative sphere, reminiscent of the spherical `dielectric' branes of Myers.