Gravity, finite duality cascades and confinement

Abstract: Cascading RG flows are characteristic of $\mathcal{N}=1$ gauge theories realized by D3-branes probing singularities in the presence of fractional branes. A celebrated example is the Klebanov-Strassler model, which exhibits an infinite cascade that ends with confinement. In this work, we explore a related setup where the addition of an orientifold plane modifies the cascade structure: the RG flow now consists of a finite number of steps, originating from a UV fixed point with a finite number of degrees of freedom. We provide a supergravity solution dual to this flow, that reproduces all its salient features. The string frame curvature can be kept small up to parametrically large values of the holographic coordinate, larger than the one at which the first cascade step occurs.