Revision 1

Accepted · first revision · record

Title: Microscopic origin of $N^3$ degrees of freedom on M5-branes
Plain: A stack of $N$ M5-branes behaves as if it carried about $N^3$ independent quantities, while a stack of $N$ ordinary D-branes carries about $N^2$. Which objects supply the $N^3$ is unknown.
Precise: The thermal free energy and anomaly coefficients of the $A_{N-1}$ $(2,0)$ theory scale as $N^{3}$ at large $N$ (Klebanov and Tseytlin 1996 from supergravity). Identify the microscopic degrees of freedom responsible (for example membrane states stretched between triples of M5-branes) and derive the coefficient of $N^{3}$ from them.
Settled by: A microscopic count, in a definition of the theory, that reproduces the coefficient of $N^{3}$ in the anomaly or free energy.
Kind: phenomenon
Answer type: mechanism
References: (empty)
Literature status: open
Status note: (empty)
Posed since: 1996