Some properties of the Alday-Maldacena minimum

The Alday-Maldacena solution, relevant to the n=4 gluon amplitude in N=4 SYM at strong coupling, was recently identified as a minimum of the regularized action in the moduli space of solutions of the AdS_5 sigma-model equations of motion. Analogous solutions of the Nambu-Goto equations for the n=4 case are presented and shown to form (modulo the reparametrization group) an equally large but different moduli space, with the Alday-Maldacena solution at the intersection of the sigma-model and Nambu-Goto moduli spaces. We comment upon the possible form of the regularized action for n=5. A function of moduli parameters z_a is written, whose minimum reproduces the BDDK one-loop five-gluon amplitude. This function may thus be considered as some kind of Legendre transform of the BDDK formula and has its own value independently of the Alday-Maldacena approach.Comment: 10 page

Boundary Ring: a way to construct approximate NG solutions with polygon boundary conditions: I. Z_n-symmetric configurations

We describe an algebro-geometric construction of polygon-bounded minimal surfaces in ADS_5, based on consideration of what we call the "boundary ring" of polynomials. The first non-trivial example of the Nambu-Goto (NG) solutions for Z_6-symmetric hexagon is considered in some detail. Solutions are represented as power series, of which only the first terms are evaluated. The NG equations leave a number of free parameters (a free function). Boundary conditions, which fix the free parameters, are imposed on truncated series. It is still unclear if explicit analytic formulas can be found in this way, but even approximate solutions, obtained by truncation of power series, can be sufficient to investigate the Alday-Maldacena -- BDS/BHT version of the string/gauge duality.Comment: 42 pages, 5 figure

Boundary Ring or a Way to Construct Approximate NG Solutions with Polygon Boundary Conditions. II. Polygons which admit an inscribed circle

We further develop the formalism of arXiv:0712.0159 for approximate solution of Nambu-Goto (NG) equations with polygon conditions in AdS backgrounds, needed in modern studies of the string/gauge duality. Inscribed circle condition is preserved, which leaves only one unknown function y_0(y_1,y_2) to solve for, what considerably simplifies our presentation. The problem is to find a delicate balance -- if not exact match -- between two different structures: NG equation -- a non-linear deformation of Laplace equation with solutions non-linearly deviating from holomorphic functions, -- and the boundary ring, associated with polygons made from null segments in Minkovski space. We provide more details about the theory of these structures and suggest an extended class of functions to be used at the next stage of Alday-Maldacena program: evaluation of regularized NG actions.Comment: 45 page

Deviation from Alday-Maldacena Duality For Wavy Circle

Alday-Maldacena conjecture is that the area A_P of the minimal surface in AdS_5 space with a boundary P, located in Euclidean space at infinity of AdS_5, coincides with a double integral D_P along P, the Abelian Wilson average in an auxiliary dual model. The boundary P is a polygon formed by momenta of n external light-like particles in N=4 SYM theory, and in a certain n=infty limit it can be substituted by an arbitrary smooth curve (wavy circle). The Alday-Maldacena conjecture is known to be violated for n>5, when it fails to be supported by the peculiar global conformal invariance, however, the structure of deviations remains obscure. The case of wavy lines can appear more convenient for analysis of these deviations due to the systematic method developed in arXiv:0803.1547 for (perturbative) evaluation of minimal areas, which is not yet available in the presence of angles at finite n. We correct a mistake in that paper and explicitly evaluate the h^2\bar h^2 terms, where the first deviation from the Alday-Maldacena duality arises for the wavy circle.Comment: 23 page