Generalized quark-antiquark potential in AdS/CFT

TL;DR

This paper introduces a family of Wilson loop operators in AdS/CFT that interpolate between known configurations, providing analytical perturbative results and insights into potential all-loop patterns for quark-antiquark interactions.

Contribution

It presents a new class of Wilson loops that generalize the quark-antiquark potential and evaluates their behavior perturbatively in gauge and string theory.

Findings

Analytical expressions for Wilson loops near the 1/2 BPS configuration.

Perturbative evaluation at first two orders in gauge and string theory.

Discussion of potential all-loop patterns for these Wilson loops.

Abstract

In this talk we present a family of Wilson loop operators which continuously interpolates between the 1/2 BPS line and the antiparallel lines, and can be thought of as calculating a generalization of the quark--antiquark potential for the gauge theory on S^3 x R. We evaluate the first two orders of these loops perturbatively both in the gauge and string theory. We obtain analytical expressions in a systematic expansion around the 1/2 BPS configuration, and comment on possible all-loop patterns for these Wilson loops.