Adding flavor on the Higgs branch

We study the holographic dual of the Higgs branch of N = 4 SYM in four dimensions coupled to quenched fundamental matter. The fundamentals are added via flavor D7‐branes and the Higgs phase is obtained when the color D3‐branes and the flavor D7‐branes recombine with each other. The holographic dual consists of D7‐brane probes in the background generated by the color D3‐branes. In this supergravity dual the Higgs phase is realized by switching on a selfdual field strength on the worldvolume of the D7‐branes. A complementary microscopic description in terms of dielectric D3‐branes is also possible. This microscopic approach permits a better matching with the dual field theory analysis. Finally, the meson mass spectrum is computed by studying the fluctuations of the flavor D7‐branes.