PP-wave and Non-supersymmetric Gauge Theory

TL;DR

This paper extends the pp-wave correspondence to a non-supersymmetric setting using type 0B string theory, explicitly solving the model and analyzing the spectrum and dual gauge theory correspondence.

Contribution

It provides the first explicit solution of a non-supersymmetric pp-wave background and establishes a detailed state/operator map with perturbative corrections.

Findings

The string spectrum includes a tachyon with computable light-cone energy.

The dual gauge theory's anomalous dimensions match string theory predictions at first order.

Perturbative analysis in the effective coupling g_{eff} is reliable with non-perturbative corrections.

Abstract

We extend the pp-wave correspondence to a non supersymmetric example. The model is the type 0B string theory on the pp-wave R-R background. We explicitly solve the model and give the spectrum of physical states. The field theory counterpart is given by a sector of the large N SU(N) x SU(N) CFT living on a stack of N electric and N magnetic D3-branes. The relevant effective coupling constant is g_{eff}=g_sN/J^2. The string theory has a tachyon in the spectrum, whose light-cone energy can be exactly computed as a function of g_{eff}. We argue that the perturbative analysis in g_{eff} in the dual gauge theory is reliable, with corrections of non perturbative type. We find a precise state/operator map, showing that the first perturbative corrections to the anomalous dimensions of the operators have the behavior expected from the string analysis.