Signals of a new phase in N=2 gauge theory with a magnetic field on the three-sphere

Understand

We study the effect of a magnetic field on N=2 super-Yang-Mills on S^3 at strong coupling using the gauge/gravity correspondence.

• As in previous work that dealt with the theory in infinite volume, we find that increasing the magnetic field pushes the system into the confined phase.
• However, we in addition also find that, within the class of configurations with the same symmetry as those which describe the ground state at vanishing magnetic field, a mass gap appears in the spectrum.
• This suggests the existence of a new phase with so far unexplored symmetry structure.