Light dilaton from top-down holographic confinement with magnetic fluxes
A two-parameter class of higher-dimensional, strongly coupled, confining field theories in the presence of magnetic fluxes for two Abelian gauge groups admits a top-down, holographic dual description. The corresponding two-parameter family of regular background solutions of the classical equations of maximal supergravity in seven dimensions descends from maximal supergravity in eleven dimensions. We study the global and local stability properties of these solutions. We identify lines of zero-temperature first-order phase transitions, describing a polygon (a square) in the space of parameters, identified with the two fluxes. The transition separates the family of gravity solutions dual to confining theories, inside the polygon, from those outside, in which the field theory is realised in a conformal phase. In the spectrum of fluctuations of the supergravity equations, interpreted as bound states of the dual, confining field theories, we find no evidence of local instabilities (tachyons). Over a significant portion of parameter space, that extends far away from the proximity to the transition, we identify an approximate dilaton, the mass of which is one order of magnitude smaller than the scale set by confinement. Our findings complement those emerging in other holographic models discussed in the literature, in which either the dilaton mass is only mildly lower than the confinement scale (when approaching a first-order transitions), or parametrically suppressed (when reaching the proximity to a second-order one).