Fractional D-branes and their gauge duals

We study the classical geometry associated to fractional D3-branes of type IIB string theory on 42 which provide the gravitational dual for = 2 super Yang-Mills theory in four dimensions. As one can expect from the lack of conformal invariance on the gauge theory side, the gravitational background displays a repulson-like singularity. It turns out however, that such singularity can be excised by an enhancon mechanism. The complete knowledge of the classical supergravity solution allows us to identify the coupling constant of the dual gauge theory in terms of the string parameters and to find a logarithmic running that is governed precisely by the β function of the = 2 super Yang-Mills theory.