Classical Worldsheets for String Scattering on Flat and AdS Spacetime

TL;DR

This paper investigates classical worldsheets describing string scattering in both flat and AdS spacetimes, highlighting their differences and similarities, especially in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of classical worldsheets for string scattering in AdS and flat spacetimes, including string-string and string-external source interactions.

Findings

Classical worldsheets in AdS relate to gluon scattering in N=4 SYM.

Comparison between flat and AdS scattering worldsheets.

New solutions describing string scattering by external sources.

Abstract

We present a study of the worldsheets that describe the classical limit of various string scattering processes. Our main focus is on string scattering in AdS spacetime because of its relation via the AdS/CFT correspondence to gluon scattering in {\cal N}=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. But we also consider analogous processes in flat Minkowski spacetime which we compare to the AdS case. In addition to scattering of string by string we also find and study worldsheets describing the scattering of a string by external sources.