Butterfly Tachyons in Vacuum String Field Theory

We use geometrical conformal field theory methods to investigate tachyon fluctuations about the butterfly projector state in Vacuum String Field Theory. We find that the on-shell condition for the tachyon field is equivalent to the requirement that the quadratic term in the string-field action vanish on shell. This further motivates the interpretation of the butterfly state as a D-brane. We begin a calculation of the tension of the butterfly, and conjecture that this will match the case of the sliver and further strengthen this interpretation.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, revte

How to Succeed at Holographic Correlators Without Really Trying

We give a detailed account of the methods introduced in [1] to calculate holographic four-point correlators in IIB supergravity on $AdS_5 \times S^5$. Our approach relies entirely on general consistency conditions and maximal supersymmetry. We discuss two related methods, one in position space and the other in Mellin space. The position space method is based on the observation that the holographic four-point correlators of one-half BPS single-trace operators can be written as finite sums of contact Witten diagrams. We demonstrate in several examples that imposing the superconformal Ward identity is sufficient to fix the parameters of this ansatz uniquely, avoiding the need for a detailed knowledge of the supergravity effective action. The Mellin space approach is an "on-shell method" inspired by the close analogy between holographic correlators and flat space scattering amplitudes. We conjecture a compact formula for the four-point correlators of one-half BPS single-trace operators of arbitrary weights. Our general formula has the expected analytic structure, obeys the superconformal Ward identity, satisfies the appropriate asymptotic conditions and reproduces all the previously calculated cases. We believe that these conditions determine it uniquely.Comment: 56 pages. A Mathematica notebook attached to the submission contains some explicit results both in position and in Mellin space; v2 published versio

The Mellin Formalism for Boundary CFTd_d

We extend the Mellin representation of conformal field theory (CFT) to allow for conformal boundaries and interfaces. We consider the simplest holographic setup dual to an interface CFT - a brane filling an $AdS_{d}$ subspace of $AdS_{d+1}$ - and perform a systematic study of Witten diagrams in this setup. As a byproduct of our analysis, we show that geodesic Witten diagrams in this geometry reproduce interface CFT$_d$ conformal blocks, generalizing the analogous statement for CFTs with no defects.Comment: 38 pages, 7 figures; v2 references added, minor changes; v3 typos corrected, derivation in 4.3 now applies to the most general case. Published versio

A note on dilaton absorption and near-infrared D3 brane holography

We consider the first subleading terms in the low-energy cross section for the absorption of dilaton partial waves by D3-branes. We demonstrate that these corrections, computed previously via supergravity, can be reproduced exactly in a worldvolume calculation using a deformation of N=4 SYM theory by a dimension eight chiral operator. The calculation does not depend on how the theory is regularized. This result provides another hint that holographic duality between the D3-brane worldvolume theory and the corresponding supergravity solution may be valid beyond the near horizon limit.Comment: 13 pages, LaTe

AdS3×S3\mathbf{AdS_3\times S^3} Tree-Level Correlators: Hidden Six-Dimensional Conformal Symmetry

We revisit the calculation of holographic correlators in $AdS_3$. We develop new methods to evaluate exchange Witten diagrams, resolving some technical difficulties that prevent a straightforward application of the methods used in higher dimensions. We perform detailed calculations in the $AdS_3 \times S^3 \times K3$ background. We find strong evidence that four-point tree-level correlators of KK modes of the tensor multiplets enjoy a hidden 6d conformal symmetry. The correlators can all be packaged into a single generating function, related to the 6d flat space superamplitude. This generalizes an analogous structure found in $AdS_5 \times S^5$ supergravity.Comment: 29 page