The worldsheet dual of free super Yang-Mills in 4D

May 21, 2021
50 pages
Published in:
  • JHEP 11 (2021) 129
  • Published: Nov 17, 2021
e-Print:

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Abstract: (Springer)
The worldsheet string theory dual to free 4d N \mathcal{N} = 4 super Yang-Mills theory was recently proposed in [1]. It is described by a free field sigma model on the twistor space of AdS5_{5} × S5^{5}, and is a direct generalisation of the corresponding model for tensionless string theory on AdS3_{3} × S3^{3}. As in the case of AdS3_{3}, the worldsheet theory contains spectrally flowed representations. We proposed in [1] that in each such sector only a finite set of generalised zero modes (‘wedge modes’) are physical. Here we show that after imposing the appropriate residual gauge conditions, this worldsheet description reproduces precisely the spectrum of the planar gauge theory. Specifically, the states in the sector with w units of spectral flow match with single trace operators built out of w super Yang-Mills fields (‘letters’). The resulting physical picture is a covariant version of the BMN light-cone string, now with a finite number of twistorial string bit constituents of an essentially topological worldsheet.
Note:
  • 50 pages
  • AdS-CFT Correspondence
  • Higher Spin Symmetry
  • flow: spectral
  • string model: duality
  • gauge field theory: Yang-Mills
  • supersymmetry: 4
  • topological
  • sigma model
  • twistor
  • gauge fixing