Supersymmetric Wilson loops at two loops
Apr, 2008
Citations per year
Abstract: (arXiv)
We study the quantum properties of certain BPS Wilson loops in supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. They belong to a general family, introduced recently, in which the addition of particular scalar couplings endows generic loops on with a fraction of supersymmetry. When restricted to , their quantum average has been further conjectured to be exactly computed by the matrix model governing the zero-instanton sector of YM on the sphere. We perform a complete two-loop analysis on a class of cusped Wilson loops lying on a two-dimensional sphere, finding perfect agreement with the conjecture. The perturbative computation reproduces the matrix-model expectation through a highly non-trivial interplay between ladder diagrams and self-energies/vertex contributions, suggesting the existence of a localization procedure.Note:
- 35 pages, 14 figures, typos corrected, references added
- gauge field theory: Yang-Mills
- supersymmetry: 4
- Wilson loop
- perturbation theory: higher-order
- higher-order: 2
- soliton: BPS
- light cone gauge
- analytic properties
- numerical calculations
- bibliography
References(70)
Figures(0)