Deconstruction of the Maldacena–Núñez compactification

We demonstrate a classical equivalence between the large-N   limit of the higgsed N=1∗N=1∗ SUSY U(N)U(N) Yang–Mills theory and the Maldacena–Núñez twisted compactification of a six-dimensional gauge theory on a two-sphere. A direct comparison of the actions and spectra of the two theories reveals them to be identical. We also propose a gauge theory limit which should describe the corresponding spherical compactification of little string theory.