Impure Aspects of Supersymmetric Wilson Loops

We study a general class of supersymmetric Wilson loops operator in N = 4 super Yang-Mills theory, obtained as orbits of conformal transformations. These loops are the natural generalization of the familiar circular Wilson-Maldacena operator and their supersymmetric properties are encoded into a Killing spinor that is not pure. We present a systematic analysis of their scalar couplings and of the preserved supercharges, modulo the action of the global symmetry group, both in the compact and in the non-compact case. The quantum behavior of their expectation value is also addressed, in the simplest case of the Lissajous contours: explicit computations at weak-coupling, through Feynman diagrams expansion, and at strong-coupling, by means of AdS/CFT correspondence, suggest the possibility of an exact evaluation.Comment: 40 pages, 4 figure

BPS Wilson Loops on S^2 at Higher Loops

We consider supersymmetric Wilson loops of the variety constructed by Drukker, Giombi, Ricci, and Trancanelli, whose spatial contours lie on a two-sphere. Working to second order in the 't Hooft coupling in planar N=4 Supersymmetric Yang-Mills Theory (SYM), we compute the vacuum expectation value of a wavy-latitude and of a loop composed of two longitudes. We evaluate the resulting integrals numerically and find that the results are consistent with the zero-instanton sector calculation of Wilson loops in 2-d Yang-Mills on S^2 performed by Bassetto and Griguolo. We also consider the connected correlator of two distinct latitudes to third order in the 't Hooft coupling in planar N=4 SYM. We compare the result in the limit where the latitudes become coincident to a perturbative calculation in 2-d Yang-Mills on S^2 using a light-cone Wu-Mandelstam-Leibbrandt prescription. We are not able to calculate the SYM result at the required order in the separation between the latitudes necessary for a match with 2-d Yang-Mills; the result, however, does not preclude such a match.Comment: 39 pages, 15 figures. v2 references added, minor cosmetic changes. v3 minor error in eq. (40) corrected. v4 error in coincident limit of correlator corrected; claims of disagreement with 2-d Yang-Mills retracte

On the integrability of Wilson loops in AdS_5 x S^5: Some periodic ansatze

Wilson loops are calculated within the AdS/CFT correspondence by finding a classical solution to the string equations of motion in AdS_5 x S^5 and evaluating its action. An important fact is that this sigma-model used to evaluate the Wilson loops is integrable, a feature that has gained relevance through the study of spinning strings carrying large quantum numbers and spin-chains. We apply the same techniques used to solve the equations for spinning strings to find the minimal surfaces describing a wide class of Wilson loops. We focus on different cases with periodic boundary conditions on the AdS_5 and S^5 factors and find a rich array of solutions. We examine the different phases that appear in the problem and comment on the applicability of integrability to the general problem.Comment: LaTex, 49 pages, 8 figure

An exact formula for the radiation of a moving quark in N=4 super Yang Mills

We derive an exact formula for the cusp anomalous dimension at small angles. This is done by relating the latter to the computation of certain 1/8 BPS Wilson loops which was performed by supersymmetric localization. This function of the coupling also determines the power emitted by a moving quark in N=4 super Yang Mills, as well as the coefficient of the two point function of the displacement operator on the Wilson loop. By a similar method we compute the near BPS expansion of the generalized cusp anomalous dimension.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures. v2: references added, typos correcte

Holography of Wilson-Loop Expectation Values with Local Operator Insertions

We study the expectation values of Wilson-loop operators with the insertionsof local operators Z^J and Zbar^J with large R-charge J from the bulk viewpoint of AdS/CFT correspondence. Classical solutions of strings attached to such deformed Wilson loops at the conformal boundary are constructed and are applied to the computation of Wilson-loop expectation values. We argue that in order to have such solutions for general insertions at finite positions in the base spacetime of the gauge theory, it is crucial to interpret the holographic correspondence in the semi-classical picture as a tunneling phenomenon, as has been previously established for holographic computations of correlators of BMN operators. This also requires to use the Euclideanized AdS background and Euclidean super Yang-Mills theory.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, version to be published in JHEP, no change from the previous version, only extraneous figure file is remove

A note on perturbation series in supersymmetric gauge theories

Exact results in supersymmetric Chern-Simons and N=2 Yang-Mills theories can be used to examine the quantum behavior of observables and the structure of the perturbative series. For the U(2) x U(2) ABJM model, we determine the asymptotic behavior of the perturbative series for the partition function and write it as a Borel transform. Similar results are obtained for N=2 SU(2) super Yang-Mills theory with four fundamental flavors and in N=2* super Yang-Mills theory, for the partition function as well as for the expectation values for Wilson loop and 't Hooft loop operators (in the 0 and 1 instanton sectors). In all examples, one has an alternate perturbation series where the coefficient of the nth term increases as n!, and the perturbation series are Borel summable. We also calculate the expectation value for a Wilson loop operator in the N=2* SU(N) theory at large N in different regimes of the 't Hooft gauge coupling and mass parameter. For large masses, the calculation reproduces the running gauge coupling for the pure N=2 SYM theory.Comment: 28 pages. V2: minor additions and reference adde

Correlators of Wilson loops and local operators from multi-matrix models and strings in AdS

We study correlation functions of Wilson loops and local operators in a subsector of N=4 SYM which preserves two supercharges. Localization arguments allow to map the problem to a calculation in bosonic two-dimensional Yang-Mills theory. In turn, this can be reduced to computing correlators in certain Gaussian multi-matrix models. We focus on the correlation function of a Wilson loop and two local operators, and solve the corresponding three-matrix model exactly in the planar limit. We compare the strong coupling behavior to string theory in AdS_5xS^5, finding precise agreement. We pay particular attention to the case in which the local operators have large R-charge J \sim sqrt{lambda} at strong coupling.Comment: 50 pages, 9 figures. v2: minor changes, references adde

Correlators of supersymmetric Wilson-loops, protected operators and matrix models in N=4 SYM

We study the correlators of a recently discovered family of BPS Wilson loops in ${\cal N}=4$ supersymmetric U(N) Yang-Mills theory. When the contours lie on a two-sphere in the space-time, we propose a closed expression that is valid for all values of the coupling constant $g$ and for any rank $N$, by exploiting the suspected relation with two-dimensional gauge theories. We check this formula perturbatively at order ${\cal O}(g^4)$ for two latitude Wilson loops and we show that, in the limit where one of the loops shrinks to a point, logarithmic corrections in the shrinking radius are absent at ${\cal O}(g^6)$. This last result strongly supports the validity of our general expression and suggests the existence of a peculiar protected local operator arising in the OPE of the Wilson loop. At strong coupling we compare our result to the string dual of the ${\cal N}=4$ SYM correlator in the limit of large separation, presenting some preliminary evidence for the agreement.Comment: 20 page, 8 figure

Supersymmetric Wilson loops in diverse dimensions

archiveprefix: arXiv primaryclass: hep-th reportnumber: AEI-2009-036, HU-EP-09-15 slaccitation: %%CITATION = ARXIV:0904.0455;%%archiveprefix: arXiv primaryclass: hep-th reportnumber: AEI-2009-036, HU-EP-09-15 slaccitation: %%CITATION = ARXIV:0904.0455;%%archiveprefix: arXiv primaryclass: hep-th reportnumber: AEI-2009-036, HU-EP-09-15 slaccitation: %%CITATION = ARXIV:0904.0455;%

Generalized quark-antiquark potential at weak and strong coupling

We study a two-parameter family of Wilson loop operators in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory which interpolates smoothly between the 1/2 BPS line or circle and a pair of antiparallel lines. These observables capture a natural generalization of the quark-antiquark potential. We calculate these loops on the gauge theory side to second order in perturbation theory and in a semiclassical expansion in string theory to one-loop order. The resulting determinants are given in integral form and can be evaluated numerically for general values of the parameters or analytically in a systematic expansion around the 1/2 BPS configuration. We comment about the feasibility of deriving all-loop results for these Wilson loops.Comment: 43 pages: 15 comprising the main text and 25 for detailed appendice