Holographic dual of the five-point conformal block

We present the holographic object which computes the five-point global conformal block in arbitrary dimensions for external and exchanged scalar operators. This object is interpreted as a weighted sum over infinitely many five-point geodesic bulk diagrams. These five-point geodesic bulk diagrams provide a generalization of their previously studied four-point counterparts. We prove our claim by showing that the aforementioned sum over geodesic bulk diagrams is the appropriate eigenfunction of the conformal Casimir operator with the right boundary conditions. This result rests on crucial inspiration from a much simpler $p$-adic version of the problem set up on the Bruhat-Tits tree.Comment: 20 pages + references, several figures. v2: Minor typos fixed, matches published versio

Recursion Relations in pp-adic Mellin Space

In this work, we formulate a set of rules for writing down $p$-adic Mellin amplitudes at tree-level. The rules lead to closed-form expressions for Mellin amplitudes for arbitrary scalar bulk diagrams. The prescription is recursive in nature, with two different physical interpretations: one as a recursion on the number of internal lines in the diagram, and the other as reminiscent of on-shell BCFW recursion for flat-space amplitudes, especially when viewed in auxiliary momentum space. The prescriptions are proven in full generality, and their close connection with Feynman rules for real Mellin amplitudes is explained. We also show that the integrands in the Mellin-Barnes representation of both real and $p$-adic Mellin amplitudes, the so-called pre-amplitudes, can be constructed according to virtually identical rules, and that these pre-amplitudes themselves may be re-expressed as products of particular Mellin amplitudes with complexified conformal dimensions.Comment: 45 pages + appendices, several figure

Perturbations of vortex ring pairs

We study pairs of co-axial vortex rings starting from the action for a classical bosonic string in a three-form background. We complete earlier work on the phase diagram of classical orbits by explicitly considering the case where the circulations of the two vortex rings are equal and opposite. We then go on to study perturbations, focusing on cases where the relevant four-dimensional transfer matrix splits into two-dimensional blocks. When the circulations of the rings have the same sign, instabilities are mostly limited to wavelengths smaller than a dynamically generated length scale at which single-ring instabilities occur. When the circulations have the opposite sign, larger wavelength instabilities can occur.Comment: 62 pages, 21 figure

pp-adic Mellin Amplitudes

In this paper, we propose a $p$-adic analog of Mellin amplitudes for scalar operators, and present the computation of the general contact amplitude as well as arbitrary-point tree-level amplitudes for bulk diagrams involving up to three internal lines, and along the way obtain the $p$-adic version of the split representation formula. These amplitudes share noteworthy similarities with the usual (real) Mellin amplitudes for scalars, but are also significantly simpler, admitting closed-form expressions where none are available over the reals. The dramatic simplicity can be attributed to the absence of descendant fields in the $p$-adic formulation.Comment: 60 pages, several figures. v2: Minor typos fixed, references adde

Segmented strings and the McMillan map

We present new exact solutions describing motions of closed segmented strings in $AdS_3$ in terms of elliptic functions. The existence of analytic expressions is due to the integrability of the classical equations of motion, which in our examples reduce to instances of the McMillan map. We also obtain a discrete evolution rule for the motion in $AdS_3$ of arbitrary bound states of fundamental strings and D1-branes in the test approximation.Comment: 18 page

O(N) and O(N) and O(N)

Three related analyses of $\phi^4$ theory with $O(N)$ symmetry are presented. In the first, we review the $O(N)$ model over the $p$-adic numbers and the discrete renormalization group transformations which can be understood as spin blocking in an ultrametric context. We demonstrate the existence of a Wilson-Fisher fixed point using an $\epsilon$ expansion, and we show how to obtain leading order results for the anomalous dimensions of low dimension operators near the fixed point. Along the way, we note an important aspect of ultrametric field theories, which is a non-renormalization theorem for kinetic terms. In the second analysis, we employ large $N$ methods to establish formulas for anomalous dimensions which are valid equally for field theories over the $p$-adic numbers and field theories on $\mathbb{R}^n$. Results for anomalous dimensions agree between the first and second analyses when they can be meaningfully compared. In the third analysis, we consider higher derivative versions of the $O(N)$ model on $\mathbb{R}^n$, the simplest of which has been studied in connection with spatially modulated phases. Our general formula for anomalous dimensions can still be applied. Analogies with two-derivative theories hint at the existence of some interesting unconventional field theories in four real Euclidean dimensions.Comment: 44 pages, 8 figure