Warping and vacua of (2+1)-dimensional super Yang-Mills theory - art. no. 086008

We use dielectric branes to find nonsingular string theory duals of a pertu rbed (2 + 1)-dimensional gauge theory living on D2-branes. By adding fermio n masses we obtain theories with reduced supersymmetry. The Higgs vacua of the perturbed theory correspond to polarization of the D2-branes into D4-br anes. The confining vacua correspond to polarization of the D2-branes into NS5-branes. We consider different mass perturbations. Adding three equal ma sses preserves N = 2 supersymmetry. Tn this case there are no confining vac ua. By adding a fourth fermion mass we break all the supersymmetry, and fin d confining vacua. We also obtain duals for domain walls, condensates, bary on vertices, glueballs and flux tubes. We comment on the Kahler potentials for the Higgs and confining phases. In the course of the calculations we al so find a nontrivial consistency check of the NS5-brane action in a D2-bran e background.