Rotating Strings in Massive Type IIA Supergravity

Abstract

Massive type IIA supergravity admits a warped AdS_6 x S^4 vacuum solution, which is expected to be dual to an N=2, D=5 super-conformal Yang-Mills theory. We study solutions for strings rotating or spinning in this background. The warp factor plays no essential role when the string spins in the AdS_6, implying a commonality in the leading Regge trajectories between the D=4 and D=5 super-conformal field theories. The warp factor does, however, become important when the string rotates in the S^4, in particular for long strings, which have the the relation E- 3J/2=c_1 + c_2/J^5+..., where the angular momentum J is large. This relation is qualitatively different from that for long strings in the AdS_5 x S^5 background. We also study Penrose limits of the AdS_6 x S^4 solution, one of which gives rise to a free massive string theory with time-dependent masses.