Adding flavor on the Higgs branch

We study the holographic dual of the Higgs branch of N=4 SYM in four dimensions coupled to quenched fundamental matter. The fundamentals are added via flavor D7-branes and the Higgs phase is obtained when the color D3-branes and the flavor D7-branes recombine with each other. The holographic dual consists of D7-brane probes in the background generated by the color D3-branes. In this supergravity dual the Higgs phase is realized by switching on a selfdual field strength on the worldvolume of the D7-branes. A complementary microscopic description in terms of dielectric D3-branes is also possible. This microscopic approach permits a better matching with the dual field theory analysis. Finally, the meson mass spectrum is computed by studying the fluctuations of the flavor D7-branes.