Maximally Supersymmetric RG Flows in 4D and Integrability

We revisit the leading irrelevant deformation of $\mathcal{N}=4$ Super Yang-Mills theory that preserves sixteen supercharges. We consider the deformed theory on $S^3 \times \mathbb{R}$. We are able to write a closed form expression of the classical action thanks to a formalism that realizes eight supercharges off shell. We then investigate integrability of the spectral problem, by studying the spin-chain Hamiltonian in planar perturbation theory. While there are some structural indications that a suitably defined deformation might preserve integrability, we are unable to settle this question by our two-loop calculation; indeed up to this order we recover the integrable Hamiltonian of undeformed $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM due to accidental symmetry enhancement. We also comment on the holographic interpretation of the theory.
Comment: 39 pages; v2: references and comments added