Strings in PP-Waves and Worldsheet Deconstruction

TL;DR

This paper explores the correspondence between string theory in PP-wave backgrounds derived from orbifolds and their dual ${ m N}=2$ quiver gauge theories, analyzing operator labels and space-time versus worldsheet deconstructions.

Contribution

It presents a detailed gauge theory description of strings in PP-waves from orbifolds, including operator labeling and duality considerations for different orbifold sizes.

Findings

Operators labeled by excitation and winding numbers

Relation between space-time and worldsheet deconstruction for large k

Discussion of duality between small and large k cases

Abstract

Based on the observation that $AdS_5\times S^5/Z_k$ orbifolds have a maximal supersymmetric PP-wave limit, the description of strings in PP-waves in terms of ${\cal N}=2$ quiver gauge theories is presented. We consider two different, small and large $k$, cases and show that the operators in the gauge theory which correspond to stringy excitations are labelled by two integers, the excitation and winding or momentum numbers. For the large $k$ case, the relation between the space-time and worldsheet deconstructions is discussed. We also comment on the possible duality between these two cases.