Wilson loops and spherical branes
Wilson loops and spherical branes
We study 1/2-BPS Wilson loop operators in maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on d-dimensional spheres. Their vacuum expectation values can be computed at large N through supersymmetric localisation. The holographic duals are given by back-reacted spherical D-branes. For d≠4, the resulting theories are non-conformal and correspondingly, the dual geometries do not possess an asymptotic AdS region. The main aim of this work is to compute the holographic Wilson loops by evaluating the partition function of a probe fundamental string and M2-brane in the dual geometry, focusing on the next-to-leading order. Along the way, we highlight a variety of issues related to the presence of a non-constant dilaton. In particular, the structure of the divergences of the one-loop partition functions takes a non-universal form in contrast to examples available in the literature. We devise a general framework to treat the divergences, successfully match the sub-leading scaling with λ and N, and provide a first step towards obtaining the numerical prefactor.
Astesiano, Davide
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Bomans, Pieter
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Gautason, Friðrik Freyr
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Puletti, Valentina Giangreco M.
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Nix, Alexia
20fd28a6-4de9-46a9-a04c-da76a13d6625
12 February 2025
Astesiano, Davide
0d277212-916d-4256-b4c9-dd90f6c6f773
Bomans, Pieter
cd8002c6-6adb-470f-beb0-36767d3d080d
Gautason, Friðrik Freyr
0c48d448-e092-48bf-a310-45862bd6fc5f
Puletti, Valentina Giangreco M.
f1c5dfa4-e068-4848-b274-4a0918afcb8a
Nix, Alexia
20fd28a6-4de9-46a9-a04c-da76a13d6625
Astesiano, Davide, Bomans, Pieter, Gautason, Friðrik Freyr, Puletti, Valentina Giangreco M. and Nix, Alexia
(2025)
Wilson loops and spherical branes.
Scipost Physics, 18 (2), [050].
(doi:10.21468/scipostphys.18.2.050).
Abstract
We study 1/2-BPS Wilson loop operators in maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on d-dimensional spheres. Their vacuum expectation values can be computed at large N through supersymmetric localisation. The holographic duals are given by back-reacted spherical D-branes. For d≠4, the resulting theories are non-conformal and correspondingly, the dual geometries do not possess an asymptotic AdS region. The main aim of this work is to compute the holographic Wilson loops by evaluating the partition function of a probe fundamental string and M2-brane in the dual geometry, focusing on the next-to-leading order. Along the way, we highlight a variety of issues related to the presence of a non-constant dilaton. In particular, the structure of the divergences of the one-loop partition functions takes a non-universal form in contrast to examples available in the literature. We devise a general framework to treat the divergences, successfully match the sub-leading scaling with λ and N, and provide a first step towards obtaining the numerical prefactor.
Text
SciPostPhys_18_2_050
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Accepted/In Press date: 5 December 2024
Published date: 12 February 2025
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 501596
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/501596
ISSN: 2542-4653
PURE UUID: 1ac13d57-b347-4799-a675-2e68e0df3e45
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Date deposited: 04 Jun 2025 16:42
Last modified: 22 Aug 2025 02:43
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Contributors
Author:
Davide Astesiano
Author:
Pieter Bomans
Author:
Friðrik Freyr Gautason
Author:
Valentina Giangreco M. Puletti
Author:
Alexia Nix
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