Correlation functions in supersymmetric gauge theories from supergravity fluctuations

Finding string duals of gauge theories is an important outstanding problem in theoretical physics. In recent years, some progress has been achieved: the AdS/CFT correspondence is a proposal of an exact duality between strings moving on an AdS₅ x S 5 background and $N$ = 4 Super Yang-Mills theory. The search is now on for finding string duals of more realistic gauge theories. A fruitful avenue of research in this context has been the study of theories involving stacks of D3-branes placed at conifold singularities. These theories have reduced supersymmetry and can also break conformal symmetry. Explicit supergravity solutions corresponding to these theories have been constructed. This dissertation is concerned with the study of one such solution, the warped deformed conifold, and its dual gauge theory. We develop a procedure for calculating correlation functions in the gauge theory by solving equations of motion for supergravity fluctuations in the warped conifold background. Using this procedure, we compute the high energy behavior of two point correlation functions of the gauge theory R-current and energy-momentum tensor, and show that these correlators are consistent with anomalous breaking of R-symmetry and dilatation symmetry. We also investigate a possible baryonic symmetry in the theory. We conclude by computing masses of low-lying glueball states in the gauge theory, explicitly demonstrating the presence of a mass gap.