The chiral anomaly from M theory

We argue that the chiral anomaly of [Formula Presented] super Yang-Mills theory admits a dual description as spontaneous symmetry breaking in M theory on [Formula Presented] holonomy manifolds. We identify an angle of the [Formula Presented] background dual to the anomalous [Formula Presented] current in field theory. This angle is not an isometry of the metric and we therefore develop a theory of “massive isometry” to describe fluctuations about such angles. Another example of a massive isometry occurs in the Atiyah-Hitchin metric.