Baryons and domain walls in an N=1 superconformal gauge theory

Coincident D3-branes placed at a conical singularity are related to string theory on AdS5xX5, for a suitable five-dimensional Einstein manifold X5. For the example of the conifold, which leads to X5=T1,1=[SU(2)xSU(2)]/U(1), the infrared limit of the theory on N D3-branes was constructed recently. This is an N=1 supersymmetric SU(N)xSU(N) gauge theory coupled to four bifundamental chiral superfields and supplemented by a quartic superpotential which becomes marginal in the infrared. In this paper we consider D3-branes wrapped over the 3-cycles of T1,1 and identify them with baryon-like chiral operators built out of products of N chiral superfields. The supergravity calculation of the dimensions of such operators agrees with field theory. We also study the D5-brane wrapped over a 2-cycle of T1,1, which acts as a domain wall in AdS5. We argue that upon crossing it the gauge group changes to SU(N)xSU(N+1). This suggests a construction of supergravity duals of N=1 supersymmetric SU(N1)xSU(N2) gauge theories. copyright 1998 The American Physical Society