Abstract. We consider giant gravitons in the maximally supersymmetric type-IIB plane-wave, in the presence of a constant NSNS B-field background. We show that in response to the background B-field the giant graviton would take the shape of a deformed three-sphere, the size and shape of which depend on the B-field, and that the giant becomes classically unstable once the B-field is larger than a critical value B_cr. In particular, for the B-field which is (anti-)self-dual under the SO(4) isometry of the original giant S³, the closed string metric is that of a round S³, while the open string metric is a squashed three-sphere. The squashed giant can be interpreted as a bound state of a spherical three-brane and circular D-strings. We work out the spectrum of geometric fluctuations of the squashed giant and study its stability. We also comment on the gauge theory which lives on the brane (which is generically a noncommutative theory) and a possible dual gauge theory description of the deformed giant.

Key words: D-branes; Penrose limit and pp-wave background; AdS-CFT and dS-CFT Correspondence

E-print number: hep-th/0406053
Cited: by
Refers: to

Received 15 June 2004, accepted for publication 29 July 2004
Published 3 September 2004