The trace anomaly of the (2,0) tensor multiplet in background gauge fields

We study the trace anomaly of the (2, 0) tensor multiplet in d = 6 in the p resence of a background SO(5) vector field acting as a source for the R-cur rent. Using both a free-field theory calculation and AdS(7)/CFT6 correspond ence, we find that only one of the two possible anomaly structures is non-z ero and that its coefficient at strong-coupling differs by the well-known o verall factor 4N(3) from the corresponding weak coupling result. We also di scuss the relevance of our result to studies of the R-current anomaly in th e (2, 0) multiplet.