No Arabic abstract
We test the spectrum of string theory on AdS_5 x S^5 derived in hep-th/0305052 against that of single-trace gauge invariant operators in free N=4 super Yang-Mills theory. Masses of string excitations at critical tension are derived by extrapolating plane-wave frequencies at g_{YM}=0 down to finite J. On the SYM side, we present a systematic description of the spectrum of single-trace operators and its reduction to PSU(2,2|4) superconformal primaries via a refined Eratostenes supersieve. We perform the comparison of the resulting SYM/string spectra of charges and multiplicities order by order in the conformal dimension Delta up to Delta=10 and find perfect agreement. Interestingly, the SYM/string massive spectrum exhibits a hidden symmetry structure larger than expected, with bosonic subgroup SO(10,2) and thirty-two supercharges.
We study near-extremal n-point correlation functions of chiral primary operators, in which the maximal scale dimension k is related to the others by k=sum_i k_i-m with m equal to or smaller than n-3. Through order g^2 in field theory, we show that these correlators are simple sums of terms each of which factors into products of lower-point correlators. Terms which contain only factors of two- and three-point functions are not renormalized, but other terms have non-vanishing order g^2 corrections. We then show that the contributing AdS exchange diagrams neatly match this factored structure. In particular, for n=4,5 precise agreement in form and coefficient is established between supergravity and the non-renormalized factored terms from field theory. On the other hand, contact diagrams in supergravity would produce a non-factored structure. This leads us to conjecture that the corresponding bulk couplings vanish, so as to achieve full agreement between the structure of these correlators in supergravity and weak-coupling field theory.
Using the thermodynamical Bethe ansatz method we derive an infinite set of integral non-linear equations for the spectrum of states/operators in AdS/CFT. The Y-system conjectured in arXiv:0901.3753 for the spectrum of all operators in planar N=4 SYM theory follows from these equations. In particular, we present the integral equations for the spectrum of all operators within the sl(2) sector. We prove that all the kernels and free terms entering these TBA equations are real and have nice fusion properties in the relevant mirror kinematics. We find the analogue of DHM formula for the dressing kernel in the mirror kinematics.
We compute the full dimension of Konishi operator in planar N=4 SYM theory it for a wide range of couplings, from weak to strong coupling regime, and predict the subleading terms in its strong coupling asymptotics. For this purpose we solve numerically the integral form of the AdS/CFT Y-system equations for the exact energies of excited states proposed by us and A.Kozak.
We analyze the spectra of non-chiral and chiral bifundamental mesons arising on intersecting D7-branes in $AdS_{5}times S^{5}$. In the absence of magnetic flux on the curve of intersection, the spectrum is non-chiral, and the dual gauge theory is conformal in the quenched/probe approximation. For this case we calculate the dimensions of the bifundamental mesonic operators. We then consider magnetization of the D7-branes, which deforms the dual theory by an irrelevant operator and renders the mesons chiral. The magnetic flux spoils the conformality of the dual theory, and induces a D3-brane charge that becomes large in the ultraviolet, where the non-normalizable bifundamental modes are rapidly divergent. An ultraviolet completion is therefore necessary to calculate the correlation functions in the chiral case. On the other hand, the normalizable modes are very well localized in the infrared, leading to new possibilities for local model-building on intersecting D7-branes in warped geometries.
We define a holographic dual to the Donaldson-Witten topological twist of $mathcal{N}=2$ gauge theories on a Riemannian four-manifold. This is described by a class of asymptotically locally hyperbolic solutions to $mathcal{N}=4$ gauged supergravity in five dimensions, with the four-manifold as conformal boundary. Under AdS/CFT, minus the logarithm of the partition function of the gauge theory is identified with the holographically renormalized supergravity action. We show that the latter is independent of the metric on the boundary four-manifold, as required for a topological theory. Supersymmetric solutions in the bulk satisfy first order differential equations for a twisted $Sp(1)$ structure, which extends the quaternionic Kahler structure that exists on any Riemannian four-manifold boundary. We comment on applications and extensions, including generalizations to other topological twists.