Central charges of wrapped M5-brane backgrounds

Abstract

We study the central charges of the supersymmetry algebra of branes in backgrounds corresponding to wrapped M5-branes. In the case of M5-branes wrapping a holomorphic 2-cycle in two complex-dimensional space, we find this allows for a supersymmetric M5-brane probe which is related to the M2-brane probe which describes the BPS spectra of the corresponding N=2 worldvolume gauge theory. For the case of M5-branes wrapping a holomorphic 2-cycle in three complex-dimensional space, we find that the central charges allow for a supersymmetric M5-brane probe wrapping a Cayley calibrated 4-cycle, which has an intersecting BPS domain wall interpretation in the corresponding N=1 MQCD gauge theory. The domain wall is constructed explicitly as an M5-brane wrapping an associative 3-cycle. The tension is found to be the integral of a calibrating form. These wrapped M5-brane backgrounds provide a clear and interesting geometrical realisation of structure groups of M-theory vacua with fluxes.