On the moduli space of the cascadingSU(M+p) ×SU(p) gauge theory

We carry out a thorough analysis of the moduli space of the cascading gaugetheory found on p D3-branes and M wrapped D5-branes at the tip of the conifold.We find various mesonic branches of the moduli space whose string duals involvethe warped deformed conifold with different numbers of mobile D3-branes. Thebranes that are not mobile form a BPS bound state at threshold. In the specialcase where p is divisible by M there also exists a one-dimensional baryonicbranch whose family of supergravity duals, the resolved warped deformedconifolds, was constructed recently. The warped deformed conifold is a specialcase of these backgrounds where the resolution parameter vanishes and a Z_2symmetry is restored. We study various brane probes on the resolved warpeddeformed conifolds, and successfully match the results with the gauge theory.In particular, we show that the radial potential for a D3-brane on this spacevaries slowly, suggesting a new model of D-brane inflation.Comment: 55 pages, 8 figures; v2: minor corrections; v3: added comments in section 1