We study the full backreaction of anti-D3 branes smeared over the tip of the deformed conifold. Requiring the 5-form flux and warp factor at the tip to be that of anti-D3 branes, we find a simple power-counting argument showing that if the 3-form fluxes have no IR singularity, they will be necessarily imaginary anti-self-dual. Hence the only solution with anti-D3 branes at the tip of the conifold that is regular in the IR and the UV is the anti-Klebanov-Strassler solution, and there is no regular solution whose D3-charge is negative in the IR and positive in the UV.

• Received 18 September 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.87.106010