AdS/CFT description of D-particle decay

TL;DR

This paper models the decay of unstable D-particles in type-IIB string theory using the AdS/CFT correspondence, constructing explicit solutions and analyzing the resulting particle spectrum to match gravity predictions.

Contribution

It provides an explicit time-dependent sphaleron decay solution on S^3 x R and develops a method to determine the bulk particle content in the dual gauge theory.

Findings

Constructed a decay solution for sphalerons on S^3 x R.

Developed a method to count bulk particles in the dual gauge theory.

Found qualitative agreement between the particle spectrum and gravity expectations.

Abstract

Unstable D-particles in type-IIB string theory correspond to sphaleron solutions in the dual gauge theory. We construct an explicit time-dependent solution for the sphaleron decay on S^3 x R, as well as the coherent state corresponding to the decay product. We develop a method to count the number of bulk particles in the AdS/CFT setup. When applied to our coherent state, the naive number operator O^\dagger O is shown to be inappropriate, even in the large-N limit. The reason is that the final state consists of a large number of particles. By computing all probabilities for finding multi-particle states in the coherent state, we deduce the bulk particle content of the final state of the sphaleron decay. The qualitative features of this spectrum are compared with the results expected from the gravity side, and agreement is found.