D3-D5 theories with unquenched flavors

We construct the string duals of the defect theories generated when N-f flavor D5-branes intersect N-c color D3-branes along a 2 + 1 dimensional subspace. We work in the Veneziano limit in which N-c and N-f are large and N-f/N-c is fixed. By smearing the D5-branes, we find supergravity solutions that take into account the backreaction of the flavor branes and preserve two supercharges. When the flavors are massless the resulting metric displays an anisotropic Lifshitz-like scale invariance. The case of massive quarks is also considered. (C) 2016 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.