Unquenched flavor on the Higgs branch

We construct the gravity duals of the Higgs branches of three-dimensional (four-dimensional) super Yang-Mills theories coupled to Nf quark flavors. The effect of the quarks on the color degrees of freedom is included, and corresponds on the gravity side to the backreaction of Nf flavor D6-branes (D7-branes) on the background of Nc color D2-branes (D3-branes). The Higgsing of the gauge group arises from the dissolution of some color branes inside the flavor branes. The dissolved color branes are represented by non-Abelian instantons whose backreaction is also included. The result is a cascading-like solution in which the effective number of color branes varies along the holographic direction. In the three-dimensional case the solution may include an arbitrary number of quasi-conformal (walking) regions.SCOPUS: ar.j