Wilson Loops in the Higgs Phase of Large N Field Theories on the Conifold

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the quark-antiquark potential in a large N superconformal field theory on a conifold, using holographic Wilson loops in supergravity, revealing Coulomb behavior and unique BPS state distributions.

Contribution

It computes Wilson loops in both the conformal and Higgs phases of a large N theory on a conifold, highlighting differences in BPS state distributions and Coulomb interactions.

Findings

Wilson loop exhibits Coulomb dependence in both phases.

Higgs phase shows a different angular distribution of BPS states.

The supergravity background used is AdS_5xT^{11}.

Abstract

We study the quark-antiquark interaction in the large N limit of the superconformal field theory on D-3branes at a Calabi-Yau conical singularity. We compute the Wilson loop in the AdS_5xT^{11} supergravity background for the SU(2N)x SU(2N) theory. We also calculate the Wilson loop for the Higgs phase where the gauge group is broken to SU(N)x SU(N)x SU_D(N). This corresponds to a two center configuration with some of the branes at the singularity and the rest of them at a smooth point. The calculation exhibits the expected Coulomb dependence for the interaction. The angular distribution of the BPS states is different than the one for a spherical horizon.