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We test the recent claim that supersymmetric matrix quantum mechanics with mass deformation preserving maximal supersymmetry can be used to study N=4 super Yang-Mills theory on RxS^3 in the planar limit. When the mass parameter is large, we can integrate out all the massive fluctuations around a particular classical solution, which corresponds to RxS^3. The resulting effective theory for the gauge field moduli at finite temperature is studied both analytically and numerically, and shown to reproduce the deconfinement phase transition in N=4 super Yang-Mills theory on RxS^3 at weak coupling. This transition was speculated to be a continuation of the conjectured phase transition at strong coupling, which corresponds to the Hawking-Page transition based on the gauge-gravity duality. By choosing a different classical solution of the same model, one can also reproduce results for gauge theories on other space-time such as RxS^3/Z_q and RxS^2. All these theories can be studied at strong coupling by the new simulation method, which was used successfully for supersymmetric matrix quantum mechanics without mass deformation.
We study event shapes in N=4 SYM describing the angular distribution of energy and R-charge in the final states created by the simplest half-BPS scalar operator. Applying the approach developed in the companion paper arXiv:1309.0769, we compute these observables using the correlation functions of certain components of the N=4 stress-tensor supermultiplet: the half-BPS operator itself, the R-symmetry current and the stress tensor. We present master formulas for the all-order event shapes as convolutions of the Mellin amplitude defining the correlation function of the half-BPS operators, with a coupling-independent kernel determined by the choice of the observable. We find remarkably simple relations between various event shapes following from N=4 superconformal symmetry. We perform thorough checks at leading order in the weak coupling expansion and show perfect agreement with the conventional calculations based on amplitude techniques. We extend our results to strong coupling using the correlation function of half-BPS operators obtained from the AdS/CFT correspondence.
We study the bosonic matrix model obtained as the high-temperature limit of two-dimensional maximally supersymmetric SU($N$) Yang-Mills theory. So far, no consensus about the order of the deconfinement transition in this theory has been reached and this hinders progress in understanding the nature of the black hole/black string topology change from the gauge/gravity duality perspective. On the one hand, previous works considered the deconfinement transition consistent with two transitions which are of second and third order. On the other hand, evidence for a first order transition was put forward more recently. We perform high-statistics lattice Monte Carlo simulations at large $N$ and small lattice spacing to establish that the transition is really of first order. Our findings flag a warning that the required large-$N$ and continuum limit might not have been reached in earlier publications, and that was the source of the discrepancy. Moreover, our detailed results confirm the existence of a new partially deconfined phase which describes non-uniform black strings via the gauge/gravity duality. This phase exhibits universal features already predicted in quantum field theory.
This is a pedagogical review on the integrability-based approach to the three-point function in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. We first discuss the computation of the structure constant at weak coupling and show that the result can be recast as a sum over partitions of the rapidities of the magnons. We then introduce a non-perturbative framework, called the hexagon approach, and explain how one can use the symmetries (i.e. superconformal and gauge symmetries) and integrability to determine the structure constants. This article is based on the lectures given in Les Houches Summer School Integrability: From statistical systems to gauge theory in June 2016.
We study the question of existence and the number of normalized vacuum states in N = 4 super-Yang-Mills quantum mechanics for any gauge group. The mass deformation method is the simplest and clearest one. It allowed us to calculate the number of normalized vacuum states for all gauge groups. For all unitary groups, #(vac) = 1, but for the symplectic groups [starting from Sp(6) ], for the orthogonal groups [starting from SO(8)] and for all the exceptional groups, it is greater than one. We also discuss at length the functional integral method. We calculate the ``deficit term for some non-unitary groups and predict the value of the integral giving the ``principal contribution. The issues like the Born-Oppenheimer procedure to derive the effective theory and the manifestation of the localized vacua for the asymptotic effective wave functions are also discussed.
We investigate BPS solutions in ABJM theory on RxS^2. We find new BPS solutions, which have nonzero angular momentum as well as nontrivial configurations of fluxes. Applying the Higgsing procedure of arxiv:0803.3218 around a 1/2-BPS solution of ABJM theory, one obtains N=8 super Yang-Mills (SYM) on RxS^2. We also show that other BPS solutions of the SYM can be obtained from BPS solutions of ABJM theory by this higgsing procedure.