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Light dilaton near critical points in top-down holography

Daniel Elander1,*, Antón F. Faedo2,3,†, Maurizio Piai4,5,‡, Ronnie Rodgers6,§, and Javier G. Subils7,∥

  • *Contact author: daniel.elander@gmail.com
  • †Contact author: anton.faedo@uniovi.es
  • ‡Contact author: m.piai@swansea.ac.uk
  • §Contact author: ronnie.rodgers@su.se
  • ∥Contact author: j.gomezsubils@uu.nl
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Phys. Rev. D 112, 126020 – Published 19 December, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/1wqc-vk7q

Abstract

We study a class of UV-complete, strongly coupled, confining three-dimensional field theories, that exhibit a novel stabilization mechanism for the mass of the lightest scalar composite state, relying on the existence of a critical point. The theories admit a holographic dual description in terms of regular backgrounds in 11-dimensional supergravity, which retains its rigorous microscopic interpretation in field theory. The phase diagram includes a line of first-order phase transitions ending at the critical point, where the transition becomes of second order. We calculate the mass spectrum of bound states of the field theory, by considering fluctuations around the background solutions, and find that, near the critical point, a hierarchy of scales develops, such that one state becomes parametrically light. We identify this state as the dilaton, the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson associated with the spontaneous breaking of approximate scale invariance, demonstrating the emergence of this composite state in an ab initio calculation that has a field theory origin. A stabilization mechanism of this type might be exploited to address hierarchy problems in particle and astroparticle physics.

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Phys. Rev. D 112, 126020– Published 19 December, 2025
  • Received 18 March 2025
  • Accepted 1 December 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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