We study the holographic realization of the SO(6)R R-symmetry of \( \mathcal{N} \) = 4 super Yang-Mills with unitary gauge group. Focusing on 1/2 BPS states in the [0, J, 0] representation of SO(6)R, it is known that depending on the scaling of J with N, these are best described holographically in terms of gravitational waves (J ≪ N) or D3 brane giant gravitons (J ~ N). These two descriptions are bridged by the dielectric effect, as the D3 giant can be regarded as a puffed-up configuration of gravitational waves. The natural non-BPS branes for symmetry operators are either 4-branes or non-BPS Kaluza-Klein monopoles. We show that the former can be regarded as a dielectric expansion of the latter, in parallel to the charged operators. We also propose symTh and symTFT candidates for the SO(6)R symmetry, whose operators at the boundary must correspond to the non-BPS branes.
