Strong coupling expansion of circular Wilson loops and string theories in AdS$_5 \times {\rm S}^5$ and AdS$_4 \times {\rm CP}^3$

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a precise match between the strong coupling expansion of circular Wilson loops in certain gauge theories and their string theory duals, including one-loop corrections and a universal prefactor.

Contribution

It provides a detailed explanation of the origin of the universal $\

Findings

Exact agreement of gauge theory and string theory results at one-loop order.

Identification of the universal $\

Implication of a natural generalization for higher genus contributions.

Abstract

We revisit the problem of matching the strong coupling expansion of the $\frac{1}{2}$ BPS circular Wilson loops in ${\cal N}=4$ SYM and ABJM gauge theories with their string theory duals in ${\rm AdS}_5 \times S^5$ and ${\rm AdS}_4 \times CP^3$, at the first subleading (one-loop) order of the expansion around the minimal surface. We observe that, including the overall factor $1/g_{\rm s}$ of the inverse string coupling constant, as appropriate for the open string partition function with disk topology, and a universal prefactor proportional to the square root of the string tension $T$, both the SYM and ABJM results precisely match the string theory prediction. We provide an explanation of the origin of the $\sqrt T$ prefactor based on special features of the combination of one-loop determinants appearing in the string partition function. The latter also implies a natural generalization $Z_\chi \sim (\sqrt T/g_{\rm s})^\chi$ to higher genus contributions with the Euler number $\chi$, which is consistent with the structure of the $1/N$ corrections found on the gauge theory side.