  States on the Coulomb branch of N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory are studied from
the point of view of gauged supergravity in five dimensions. These
supersymmetric solutions provide examples of consistent truncation from type
IIB supergravity in ten dimensions. A mass gap for states created by local
operators and perfect screening for external quarks arise in the supergravity
approximation. We offer an interpretation of these surprising features in terms
of ensembles of brane distributions.
