Light-Cone Wilson Loops and the String/Gauge Correspondence

TL;DR

This paper studies a light-cone Wilson loop in N=4 super Yang-Mills theory, connecting it to string theory in AdS_5 x S^5, and calculates anomalous dimensions of high-spin operators both perturbatively and via minimal surfaces.

Contribution

It provides an explicit calculation of the Wilson loop's minimal surface in supergravity and relates it to anomalous dimensions at large coupling, extending the gauge/string correspondence.

Findings

Reproduces Gubser, Klebanov, Polyakov prediction for anomalous dimensions at large mbda.

Calculates the minimal surface in supergravity approximation.

Discusses quantum-mechanical interpretation of the results.

Abstract

We investigate a \Pi-shape Wilson loop in N=4 super Yang--Mills theory, which lies partially at the light-cone, and consider an associated open superstring in AdS_5 x S^5. We discuss how this Wilson loop determines the anomalous dimensions of conformal operators with large Lorentz spin and present an explicit calculation in perturbation theory to order \lambda. We find the minimal surface in the supergravity approximation, that reproduces the Gubser, Klebanov and Polyakov prediction for the anomalous dimensions at large \lambda=g_YM^2 N, and discuss its quantum-mechanical interpretation.