Contents

Idea

In string theory by a giant graviton one refers to a D-brane- or M-brane-configuration which wraps a contractible cycle stabilized not by topology (as for usual wrapped branes) or by flux (as for polarized branes), but by angular momentum, usually along the equator of the n-sphere-factor in a Freund-Rubin compactification.

Examples

In the BMN matrix model

The supersymmetric classical solutions of the BMN matrix model are configurations of fuzzy 2-spheres, corresponding to M2-brane-giant gravitons (BMN 02 (5.4), DSJVR 02).

Related concepts

• polarized brane

• wrapped brane

• M2-M5 brane bound state

• dual graviton

References

General

The concept was introduced in

• John McGreevy, Leonard Susskind, Nicolaos Toumbas, Invasion of the Giant Gravitons from Anti-de Sitter Space, JHEP 0006:008, 2000 (arXiv:hep-th/0003075)

for branes in anti de Sitter spacetime times an n-sphere and generalized to other near horizon geometries in

• S. R. Das, S. P.. Trivedi, S. Vaidya, Magnetic Moments of Branes and Giant Gravitons, JHEP 0010 (2000) 037 (arXiv:hep-th/0008203)

• Andrei Mikhailov, Giant Gravitons from Holomorphic Surfaces, JHEP 0011 (2000) 027 (arXiv:hep-th/0010206)

• J. M. Camino, A.V. Ramallo, Giant Gravitons with NSNS B field, JHEP 0109:012,2001 (arXiv:hep-th/0107142)

Review:

• Robert Myers, Section 5 of: Nonabelian Phenomena on D-branes, Class. Quant. Grav. 20 (2003) S347-S372 (arXiv:hep-th/0303072)

Further discussion:

• Akikazu Hashimoto, Shinji Hirano, N. Itzhaki, Large branes in AdS and their field theory dual, JHEP 0008:051, 2000 (arXiv:hep-th/0008016)

• Sumit R. Das, Antal Jevicki, Samir D. Mathur, Vibration modes of giant gravitons, Phys.Rev. D63 (2001) 024013 (arXiv:hep-th/0009019)

• Sumit R. Das, Antal Jevicki, Samir Mathur, Giant Gravitons, BPS bounds and Noncommutativity, Phys.Rev. D63 (2001) 044001 (arXiv:hep-th/0008088)

• Julian Lee, Tunneling between the giant gravitons in $AdS_5 \times S^5$, Phys.Rev. D64 (2001) 046012 (arXiv:hep-th/0010191)

• Jin Young Kim, Y.S. Myung, Vibration modes of giant gravitons in the background of dilatonic D-branes, Phys.Lett. B509 (2001) 157-162 (arXiv:hep-th/0103001)

• Vijay Balasubramanian, Micha Berkooz, Asad Naqvi, Matthew Strassler, Giant Gravitons in Conformal Field Theory, JHEP 0204 (2002) 034 (arXiv:hep-th/0107119)

• Yolanda Lozano, Jeff Murugan, Andrea Prinsloo, A giant graviton genealogy, JHEP 08 (2013) 109 (arXiv:1305.6932)

Specifically M2-M5 brane bound state giant gravitons are discussed in:

• J. M. Camino, A. V. Ramallo, M-Theory Giant Gravitons with C field, Phys. Lett. B525:337-346, 2002 (arXiv:hep-th/0110096)

• Shinji Hirano, Yuki Sato, Giant graviton interactions and M2-branes ending on multiple M5-branes, JHEP 05 (2018) 065 (arXiv:1803.04172)

Relation to polarized branes

On the relation of polarized branes to giant gravitons:

• Iosif Bena, Douglas Smith, Towards the solution to the giant graviton puzzle, Phys. Rev. D71 (2005) 025005 (arXiv:hep-th/0401173)

Under AdS/CFT

Discussion of SYM-duals of giant gravitons and indexing of BPS states by Young diagrams:

• Steve Corley, Antal Jevicki, Sanjaye Ramgoolam, Exact Correlators of Giant Gravitons from dual $N=4$ SYM, Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 5 (2002) 809-839 (arXiv:hep-th/0111222)

• Garreth Kemp, Sanjaye Ramgoolam, BPS states, conserved charges and centres of symmetric group algebras, JHEP 01 (2020) 146 (arXiv:1911.11649)