Dynamics with Infinitely Many Time Derivatives and Rolling Tachyons

Both in string field theory and in p-adic string theory the equations of motion involve infinite number of time derivatives. We argue that the initial value problem is qualitatively different from that obtained in the limit of many time derivatives in that the space of initial conditions becomes strongly constrained. We calculate the energy-momentum tensor and study in detail time dependent solutions representing tachyons rolling on the p-adic string theory potentials. For even potentials we find surprising small oscillations at the tachyon vacuum. These are not conventional physical states but rather anharmonic oscillations with a nontrivial frequency--amplitude relation. When the potentials are not even, small oscillatory solutions around the bottom must grow in amplitude without a bound. Open string field theory resembles this latter case, the tachyon rolls to the bottom and ever growing oscillations ensue. We discuss the significance of these results for the issues of emerging closed strings and tachyon matter.Comment: 46 pages, 14 figures, LaTeX. Replaced version: Minor typos corrected, some figures edited for clarit

Seiberg-Witten Curve for the E-String Theory

We construct the Seiberg-Witten curve for the E-string theory in six-dimensions. The curve is expressed in terms of affine E_8 characters up to level 6 and is determined by using the mirror-type transformation so that it reproduces the number of holomorphic curves in the Calabi-Yau manifold and the amplitudes of N=4 U(n) Yang-Mills theory on 1/2 K3. We also show that our curve flows to known five- and four-dimensional Seiberg-Witten curves in suitable limits.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure; appendix C adde

Quasilocality of joining/splitting strings from coherent states

Using the coherent state formalism we calculate matrix elements of the one-loop non-planar dilatation operator of ${\cal N}=4$ SYM between operators dual to folded Frolov-Tseytlin strings and observe a curious scaling behavior. We comment on the {\it qualitative} similarity of our matrix elements to the interaction vertex of a string field theory. In addition, we present a solvable toy model for string splitting and joining. The scaling behaviour of the matrix elements suggests that the contribution to the genus one energy shift coming from semi-classical string splitting and joining is small.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures in 11 file

Anomalous dimensions at four loops in N=6 superconformal Chern-Simons theories

In arXiv:0908.2463 we computed the four-loop correction to a function depending on the 't Hooft coupling(s) that appears in the magnon dispersion relation of the spin chains derived from single trace operators in N=6 superconformal Chern-Simons theories. In this paper we give detailed descriptions of this calculation and the computation of the four-loop wrapping corrections for a length four operator in the 20 of SU(4), the R-symmetry group for these theories. Here, we give all relevant Feynman diagrams and loop integrals explicitly, and also demonstrate the cancellation of double poles in the logarithm of the renormalization constant.Comment: LaTeX, feynmp, 70 pages; v2: signs of three diagrams due to inconsistent Feynman rules corrected, modifying the final result, typos corrected, formulations improve

Brane Decay and Death of Open Strings

We show how open strings cease to propagate when unstable D-branes decay. The information on the propagation is encoded in BSFT two-point functions for arbitrary profiles of open string excitations. We evaluate them in tachyon condensation backgrounds corresponding to (i) static spatial tachyon kink (= lower dimensional BPS D-brane) and (ii) homogeneous rolling tachyon. For (i) the propagation is restricted to the directions along the tachyon kink, while for (ii) all the open string excitations cease to propagate at late time and are subject to a collapsed light cone characterized by Carrollian contraction of Lorentz group.Comment: 19 pages, published version (typos corrected, a reference added

Instanton Expansions for Mass Deformed N=4 Super Yang-Mills Theories

We derive modular anomaly equations from the Seiberg-Witten-Donagi curves for softly broken N=4 SU(n) gauge theories. From these equations we can derive recursion relations for the pre-potential in powers of m^2, where m is the mass of the adjoint hypermultiplet. Given the perturbative contribution of the pre-potential and the presence of ``gaps'' we can easily generate the m^2 expansion in terms of polynomials of Eisenstein series, at least for relatively low rank groups. This enables us to determine efficiently the instanton expansion up to fairly high order for these gauge groups, e. g. eighth order for SU(3). We find that after taking a derivative, the instanton expansion of the pre-potential has integer coefficients. We also postulate the form of the modular anomaly equations, the recursion relations and the form of the instanton expansions for the SO(2n) and E_n gauge groups, even though the corresponding Seiberg-Witten-Donagi curves are unknown at this time.Comment: harvmac(b) 28 page

Non-Douglas-Kazakov phase transition of two-dimensional generalized Yang-Mills theories

In two-dimensional Yang-Mills and generalized Yang-Mills theories for large gauge groups, there is a dominant representation determining the thermodynamic limit of the system. This representation is characterized by a density the value of which should everywhere be between zero and one. This density itself is determined through a saddle-point analysis. For some values of the parameter space, this density exceeds one in some places. So one should modify it to obtain an acceptable density. This leads to the well-known Douglas-Kazakov phase transition. In generalized Yang-Mills theories, there are also regions in the parameter space where somewhere this density becomes negative. Here too, one should modify the density so that it remains nonnegative. This leads to another phase transition, different from the Douglas-Kazakov one. Here the general structure of this phase transition is studied, and it is shown that the order of this transition is typically three. Using carefully-chosen parameters, however, it is possible to construct models with phase-transition orders not equal to three. A class of these non-typical models are also studied.Comment: 11 pages, accepted for publication in Eur. Phys. J.

Realization of Brane Descent Relations in Effective Theories

We examine Sen's descent relations among (non-)BPS D-branes by using low energy effective field theories of DpDpbar system. We find that the fluctuation around the kink solution reproduces the low energy matter content on a non-BPS D(p-1)-brane. The effective action for these fluctuation modes turns out to be a generalization of Minahan-Zwiebach model. In addition, it is shown that the fluctuations around the vortex solution consist of massless fields on a BPS D(p-2)-brane and they are subject to Dirac-Born-Infeld action. We find the universality that the above results do not refer to particular forms of the effective action.Comment: 24 pages, LaTeX, 1 eps figure; v2:minor correction

Plane wave limit of local conserved charges

We study the plane wave limit of the Backlund transformations for the classical string in AdS space times a sphere and obtain an explicit expression for the local conserved charges. We show that the Pohlmeyer charges become in the plane wave limit the local integrals of motion of the free massive field. This fixes the coefficients in the expansion of the anomalous dimension as the sum of the Pohlmeyer charges.Comment: v2: added explanation

The Morphology of N=6 Chern-Simons Theory

We tabulate various properties of the language of N=6 Chern-Simons Theory, in the sense of Polyakov. Specifically we enumerate and compute character formulas for all syllables of up to four letters, i.e. all irreducible representations of OSp(6|4) built from up to four fundamental fields of the ABJM theory. We also present all tensor product decompositions for up to four singletons and list the (cyclically invariant) four-letter words, which correspond to single-trace operators of length four. As an application of these results we use the two-loop dilatation operator to compute the leading correction to the Hagedorn temperature of the weakly-coupled planar ABJM theory on R \times S^2.Comment: 41 pages, 1 figure; v2: minor correction