(Multi)Matrix Models and Interacting Clones of Liouville Gravity

TL;DR

This paper explores large-N matrix models coupled through multitrace operators, revealing how they define solvable, non-local multi-string theories with simple spacetime descriptions, and offers a new interpretation aligned with Liouville theory and AdS/CFT insights.

Contribution

It introduces a novel interpretation of continuum limits in matrix models related to Liouville interactions, enhancing understanding of non-local multi-string theories and their spacetime physics.

Findings

Models are solvable via double-scaling limits.

Theories exhibit non-local world-sheet behavior but simple spacetime physics.

New interpretation aligns with Liouville theory and AdS/CFT correspondence.

Abstract

Large-N matrix models coupled via multitrace operators are used to define, via appropriate double-scaling limits, solvable models of interacting multi-string theories. It is shown that although such theories are non-local at the world-sheet level they have a simple description of the spacetime physics. Such theories share the main characteristics of similarly coupled higher-dimensional CFTs. An interpretation has been given in the past of similar continuum limits in terms of Liouville interactions that violate the Seiberg bound. We provide a novel interpretation of this relation which agrees with the current understanding of Liouville theory and analogous observations in the AdS/CFT correspondence.