No Arabic abstract
We perform a numerical bootstrap study of the mixed correlator system containing the half-BPS operators of dimension two and three in $mathcal N = 4$ Super Yang-Mills. This setup improves on previous works in the literature that only considered single correlators of one or the other operator. We obtain upper bounds on the leading twist in a given representation of the R-symmetry by imposing gaps on the twist of all operators rather than the dimension of a single one. As a result we find a tension between the large $N$ supergravity predictions and the numerical finite $N$ results already at $Nsim 100$. A few possible solutions are discussed: the extremal spectrum suggests that at large but finite $N$, in addition to the double trace operators, there exists a second tower of states with smaller dimension. We also obtain new bounds on the dimension of operators which were not accessible with a single correlator setup. Finally we consider bounds on the OPE coefficients of various operators. The results obtained for the OPE coefficient of the lightest scalar singlet show evidences of a two dimensional conformal manifold.
We study two-point functions of single-trace half-BPS operators in the presence of a supersymmetric Wilson line in $mathcal{N}=4$ SYM. We use inversion formula technology in order to reconstruct the CFT data starting from a single discontinuity of the correlator. In the planar strong coupling limit only a finite number of conformal blocks contributes to the discontinuity, which allows us to obtain elegant closed-form expressions for two-point functions of single-trace operators $mathcal{O}_J$ of weight $J=2,3,4$. Our final result passes a number of non-trivial consistency checks: it has the correct discontinuity, it satisfies the superconformal Ward identities, it has a sensible expansion in both defect and bulk OPEs, and is consistent with available results coming from localization. The method is completely algorithmic and can be implemented to calculate correlators of arbitrary weight.
This paper concerns a special class of $n$-point correlation functions of operators in the stress tensor supermultiplet of $mathcal{N}=4$ supersymmetric $SU(N)$ Yang-Mills theory. These are maximal $U(1)_Y$-violating correlators that violate the bonus $U(1)_Y$ charge by a maximum of $2(n-4)$ units. We will demonstrate that such correlators satisfy $SL(2,mathbb{Z})$-covariant recursion relations that relate $n$-point correlators to $(n-1)$-point correlators in a manner analogous to the soft dilaton relations that relate the corresponding amplitudes in flat-space type IIB superstring theory. These recursion relations are used to determine terms in the large-$N$ expansion of $n$-point maximal $U(1)_Y$-violating correlators in the chiral sector, including correlators with four superconformal stress tensor primaries and $(n-4)$ chiral Lagrangian operators, starting from known properties of the $n=4$ case. We concentrate on the first three orders in $1/N$ beyond the supergravity limit. The Mellin representations of the correlators are polynomials in Mellin variables, which correspond to higher derivative contact terms in the low-energy expansion of type IIB superstring theory in $AdS_5 times S^5$ at the same orders as $R^4, d^4R^4$ and $d^6R^4$. The coupling constant dependence of these terms is found to be described by non-holomorphic modular forms with holomorphic and anti-holomorphic weights $(n-4,4-n)$ that are $SL(2, mathbb{Z})$-covariant derivatives of Eisenstein series and certain generalisations. This determines a number of non-leading contributions to $U(1)_Y$-violating $n$-particle interactions ($n>4$) in the low-energy expansion of type IIB superstring amplitudes in $AdS_5times S^5$.
Quantum correlators of pure supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories in D=3,4,6 and 10 dimensions can be reformulated via the non-linear and non-local transformation (`Nicolai map) that maps the full functional measure of the interacting theory to that of a free bosonic theory. As a special application we show that for the maximally extended N=4 theory in four dimensions, and up to order O(g^2), all known results for scalar correlators can be recovered in this way without any use of anti-commuting variables, in terms of a purely bosonic and ghost free functional measure for the gauge fields. This includes in particular the dilatation operator yielding the anomalous dimensions of composite operators. The formalism is thus competitive with more standard perturbative techniques.
We consider the ambitwistor description of $mathcal N$=4 supersymmetric extension of U($N$) Yang-Mills theory on Minkowski space $mathbb R^{3,1}$. It is shown that solutions of super-Yang-Mills equations are encoded in real-analytic U($N$)-valued functions on a domain in superambitwistor space ${mathcal L}_{mathbb R}^{5|6}$ of real dimension $(5|6)$. This leads to a procedure for generating solutions of super-Yang-Mills equations on $mathbb R^{3,1}$ via solving a Riemann-Hilbert-type factorization problem on two-spheres in $mathcal L_{mathbb R}^{5|6}$.
We study modular invariants arising in the four-point functions of the stress tensor multiplet operators of the ${cal N} = 4$ $SU(N)$ super-Yang-Mills theory, in the limit where $N$ is taken to be large while the complexified Yang-Mills coupling $tau$ is held fixed. The specific four-point functions we consider are integrated correlators obtained by taking various combinations of four derivatives of the squashed sphere partition function of the ${cal N} = 2^*$ theory with respect to the squashing parameter $b$ and mass parameter $m$, evaluated at the values $b=1$ and $m=0$ that correspond to the ${cal N} = 4$ theory on a round sphere. At each order in the $1/N$ expansion, these fourth derivatives are modular invariant functions of $(tau, bar tau)$. We present evidence that at half-integer orders in $1/N$, these modular invariants are linear combinations of non-holomorphic Eisenstein series, while at integer orders in $1/N$, they are certain generalized Eisenstein series which satisfy inhomogeneous Laplace eigenvalue equations on the hyperbolic plane. These results reproduce known features of the low-energy expansion of the four-graviton amplitude in type IIB superstring theory in ten-dimensional flat space and have interesting implications for the structure of the analogous expansion in $AdS_5times S^5$.