Penrose Limits, Deformed pp-Waves and the String Duals of Script N = 1 Large-NGauge Theory

A certain conformally invariant N=1 supersymmetric SU(n) gauge theory has adescription as an infra-red fixed point obtained by deforming the N=4supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory by giving a mass to one of its N=1 chiralmultiplets. We study the Penrose limit of the supergravity dual of the large nlimit of this N=1 gauge theory. The limit gives a pp-wave with R-R five-formflux and both R-R and NS-NS three-form flux. We discover that this new solutionpreserves twenty supercharges and that, in the light-cone gauge, string theoryon this background is exactly solvable. Correspondingly, this latter is thestringy dual of a particular large charge limit of the large n gauge theory. Weare able to identify which operators in the field theory survive the limit toform the string's ground state and some of the spacetime excitations. The fullstring model, which we exhibit, contains a family of non-trivial predictionsfor the properties of the gauge theory operators which survive the limit.Comment: 39 pages, Late