On the boundary gauge dual of closed tensionless free strings in AdS

TL;DR

This paper investigates tensionless closed strings in AdS space, showing their boundary dynamics are frozen and proposing a dual weakly coupled abelian gauge theory involving (d-4)-forms on the boundary.

Contribution

It provides an exact calculation of the boundary evolution kernel for tensionless strings and interprets the boundary states as Wilson loops in a confining phase.

Findings

Boundary string dynamics are completely frozen.

Boundary configurations correspond to Wilson loop operators.

Supports duality with a (d-4)-form gauge theory in boundary Minkowski space.

Abstract

We consider closed free tensionless strings in $AdS_d$, calculate exactly the boundary/boundary string evolution kernel and find the string dynamics to be completely frozen. We interpret therefore the boundary configurations as Wilson loop operators in a confining phase. This is taken as an argument in favor to the dual weakly coupled abelian gauge theory being that of $(d-4)$-forms in the $(d-1)$ dimensional boundary Minkowski space.