2 00 6 Central charges of wrapped M 5 - brane backgrounds

We study the central charges of the supersymmetry algebra of branes in backgrounds corresponding to wrapped M5-branes. In the case of M5-branes wrapping a holomorphic 2-cycle in C2, we find this allows for a supersymmetric M5-brane probe which is related to the M2-brane probe which describes the BPS spectra of the corresponding N = 2 worldvolume gauge theory. For the case of M5-branes wrapping a holomorphic 2-cycle in C3, we find that the central charges allow for a supersymmetric M5-brane probe wrapping a Cayley calibrated 4-cycle, which has an intersecting BPS domain wall interpretation in the corresponding N = 1 MQCD gauge theory. The domain wall is constructed explicitly as an M5-brane wrapping an associative 3cycle. The tension is found to be the integral of a calibrating form. These wrapped M5-brane backgrounds provide a clear and interesting geometrical realisation of structure groups of M-theory vacua with fluxes. DCPT-06/01 email: [email protected] email: [email protected]