BPS Wilson loops in Minkowski spacetime and Euclidean space

We give evidence that spacelike BPS Wilson loops do not exist in Minkowski spacetime. We show that spacelike Wilson loops in Minkowski spacetime cannot preserve any supersymmetries, in $d = 4$ $\mathcal N = 4$ super Yang-Mills theory, $d = 3$ $\mathcal N = 2$ super Chern-Simons-matter theory, and $d = 3$ $\mathcal N = 6$ Aharony-Bergman-Jafferis-Maldacena theory. We not only show this using infinite straight lines and circles as examples, but also we give proofs for general curves. We attribute this to the conflicts of reality conditions of the spinors. However, spacelike Wilson loops do exist in Euclidean space. There are both BPS Wilson loops along infinite straight lines and circular BPS Wilson loops. This is because the reality conditions of the spinors are lost after Wick rotation. The result is reasonable in view of the AdS/CFT correspondence.Comment: V1, 19 pages, no figure; V2, 25 pages, typos corrected and proofs for general curves added thanks to the careful reading and valuable suggestions of the anonymous referee, version to appear in EPJC; V3, 25 pages, published versio

Construction and classification of novel BPS Wilson loops in quiver Chern-Simons-matter theories

In this paper we construct and classify novel Drukker-Trancanelli (DT) type BPS Wilson loops along infinite straight lines and circles in $\mathcal N=2,3$ quiver superconformal Chern-Simons-matter theories, Aharony-Bergman-Jafferis-Maldacena (ABJM) theory, and $\mathcal N=4$ orbifold ABJM theory. Generally we have four classes of Wilson loops, and all of them preserve the same supersymmetries as the BPS Gaiotto-Yin (GY) type Wilson loops. There are several free complex parameters in the DT type BPS Wilson loops, and for two classes of Wilson loops in ABJM theory and $\mathcal N=4$ orbifold ABJM theory there are supersymmetry enhancements at special values of the parameters. We check that the differences of the DT type and GY type Wilson loops are $Q$-exact with $Q$ being some supercharges preserved by both the DT type and GY type Wilson loops. The results would be useful to calculate vacuum expectation values of the DT type Wilson loops in matrix models if they are still BPS quantum mechanically.Comment: V1, 28 pages; V2,35 pages, published versio

Exact results for Wilson loops in orbifold ABJM theory

We investigate the exact results for circular 1/4 and 1/2 BPS Wilson loops in the $d=3$ ${\mathcal N}=4$ super Chern-Simons-matter theory that could be obtained by orbifolding Aharony-Bergman-Jafferis-Maldacena (ABJM) theory. The partition function of the ${\mathcal N}=4$ orbifold ABJM theory has been computed previously in the literature. In this paper, we re-derive it using a slightly different method. We calculate the vacuum expectation values of the circular 1/4 BPS Wilson loops in fundamental representation and of circular 1/2 BPS Wilson loops in arbitrary representations. We use both the saddle point approach and Fermi gas approach. The results for Wilson loops are in accord with the available gravity results.Comment: V1, 19 pages, 1 figure; V2, 24 pages, 1 figure, general representations added; V3, 26 pages, no figure, published versio

Novel BPS Wilson loops in three-dimensional quiver Chern-Simons-matter theories

We show that generic three-dimensional $\mathcal N=2$ quiver super Chern-Simons-matter theories admit Bogomol'nyi-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS) Drukker-Trancanelli (DT) type Wilson loops. We investigate both Wilson loops along timelike infinite straight lines in Minkowski spacetime and circular Wilson loops in Euclidean space. In Aharnoy-Bergman-Jafferis-Maldacena theory, we find that generic BPS DT type Wilson loops preserve the same number of supersymmetries as Gaiotto-Yin type Wilson loops. There are several free parameters for generic BPS DT type Wilson loops in the construction, and supersymmetry enhancement for Wilson loops happens for special values of the parameters.Comment: V1, 5 pages; V2, 13 pages, circular Wilson loops added, published versio

M5-branes and Wilson Surfaces

We investigate the M5-brane description of the Wilson surface operators in six-dimensional (2,0) superconformal field theory from AdS/CFT correspondence. We consider the Wilson surface operators in high-dimensional representation, whose description could be M5-brane string soliton solutions in $AdS_7\times S^4$ background. We construct such string soliton solutions from the covariant M5-brane equations of motion and discuss their properties. The supersymmetry analysis shows that these solutions are half-BPS. We also discuss the subtle issue on the boundary terms.Comment: 30 pages, Latex; little revision;Typos corrected, references added, JHEP published versio

Central Speed of Sound, Trace Anomaly and Observables of Neutron Stars from Perturbative Analyses of Scaled TOV Equations

The central speed of sound (SS) measures the stiffness of the Equation of State (EOS) of superdense neutron star (NS) matter. Its variations with density and radial coordinate in NSs in conventional analyses often suffer from uncertainties of the specific nuclear EOSs used. Using the central SS and NS mass/radius scaling obtained from solving perturbatively the scaled Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff (TOV) equations, we study the variations of SS, trace anomaly and several closely related properties of NSs in an EOS-model independent manner. We find that the SS increases with the reduced central pressure $\widehat{P}_{\rm{c}}\equiv P_{\rm{c}}/\varepsilon_{\rm{c}}$ (scaled by the central energy density $\varepsilon_{\rm{c}}$), and the conformal bound for SS is violated for NSs with masses higher than about 1.9M$_{\odot}$. The ratio $P/\varepsilon$ is upper bounded as $P/\varepsilon\lesssim0.374$ around the centers of stable NSs. We demonstrate that it is an intrinsic property of strong-field gravity and is more relevant than the perturbative QCD bound on it. While a sharp phase transition at high densities characterized by a sudden vanishing of SS in cores of massive NSs are basically excluded, the probability for a continuous crossover signaled by a peaked radial profile of SS is found to be enhanced as $\widehat{P}_{\rm{c}}$ decreases, implying it likely happens near the centers of massive NSs. Moreover, a new and more stringent causality boundary as $R_{\max}/\rm{km}\gtrsim 4.73M_{\rm{NS}}^{\max}/M_{\odot}+1.14$ for NS M-R curve is found to be excellently consistent with observational data on NS masses and radii. Furthermore, new constraints on the ultimate energy density and pressure allowed in NSs before collapsing into black holes are obtained and compared with earlier predictions in the literature.Comment: 23 page

Effect of terrains on the volatiles of Cabernet Sauvignon wines grown in Loess Plateau region of China

Volatile compounds of young Cabernet Sauvignon wines from the flat and slope lands grown in Loess Plateau region (China) were investigated in this research. Among the volatile compounds analyzed by headspace solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME) with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), a total of 43 and 45 volatile compounds were identified and quantified in the flat and slope lands wines, respectively. In the volatiles detected, higher alcohols formed the most abundant group in the aroma components of two wines, followed by esters and fatty acids. According to their odor active values (OAVs) and relative odor contribution (ROC), the aromatic profiles for two wines were similar, showing only quantitative but not qualitative differences. Ethyl octanoate, ethyl hexanoate and isoamyl acetate were found to jointly contribute to 98.8 and 99.2% of the global aroma of the flat and slope wines, respectively. These odorants are associated with “fruity’’ and ‘‘ripe fruit’’ odor descriptors. Wine from flat land with higher OAVs of ethyl octanoate and isoamyl acetate seems to have more intense fruity aromas (pineapple, pear and banana), with floral notes.Keywords: Cabernet Sauvignon wines, volatiles, terrains, Loess Plateau region, headspace solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS