Stable non-supersymmetric supergravity solutions from deformations of the Maldacena-Nunez background

We study a deformation of the type IIB Maldacena-Nunez background which arises as the near-horizon limit of NS5 branes wrapped on a two-cycle. This background is dual to a 'little string theory compactified on a two-sphere, a theory which at low energies includes four-dimensional N=1 super Yang-Mills theory. The deformation we study corresponds to a mass term for some of the scalar fields in this theory, and it breaks supersymmetry completely. In the language of seven-dimensional SO(4) gauged supergravity the deformation involves (at leading order) giving a VEV, depending only on the radial coordinate, to a particular scalar field. We explicitly construct the corresponding solution at leading order in the deformation, both in seven-dimensional and in ten-dimensional supergravity, and we verify that it completely breaks supersymmetry. Since the original background had a mass gap and we are performing a small deformation, the deformed background is guaranteed to be stable even though it is not supersymmetric. (author)