Hard Scattering and Gauge/String Duality

TL;DR

This paper investigates high-energy glueball scattering in confining gauge theories with supergravity duals, revealing that amplitudes are power-law due to warped geometry, with different behaviors at small angles.

Contribution

It demonstrates that string scattering amplitudes in confining gauge theories with supergravity duals are inherently hard, challenging expectations of soft behavior.

Findings

Amplitudes are power-law (hard) due to warped geometry.

Different scattering behaviors observed at small angles.

String processes remain in the hard regime in inertial frames.

Abstract

We consider high-energy fixed-angle scattering of glueballs in confining gauge theories that have supergravity duals. Although the effective description is in terms of the scattering of strings, we find that the amplitudes are hard (power law). This is a consequence of the warped geometry of the dual theory, which has the effect that in an inertial frame the string process is never in the soft regime. At small angle we find hard and Regge behaviors in different kinematic regions.