Gauge-string duality for superconformal deformations of N=4 Super Yang-Mills theory

TL;DR

This paper explores the gauge-string duality for a deformed version of N=4 Super Yang-Mills theory, demonstrating integrability and matching string theory predictions with gauge theory anomalous dimensions through Bethe Ansatz techniques.

Contribution

It establishes the integrability of the beta-deformed theory and its string dual, extending the gauge/gravity correspondence to include exactly marginal deformations.

Findings

Confirmed integrability of the deformed worldsheet theory.

Matched semiclassical string energies with gauge theory anomalous dimensions.

Derived Bethe equations on both string and gauge sides, showing their equivalence.

Abstract

We analyze in detail the relation between an exactly marginal deformation of N=4 SYM - the Leigh-Strassler or ``beta-deformation'' - and its string theory dual (recently constructed in hep-th/0502086) by comparing energies of semiclassical strings to anomalous dimensions of gauge-theory operators in the two-scalar sector. We stress the existence of integrable structures on the two sides of the duality. In particular, we argue that the integrability of strings in AdS_5 x S^5 implies the integrability of the deformed world sheet theory with real deformation parameter. We compare the fast string limit of the worldsheet action in the sector with two angular momenta with the continuum limit of the coherent state action of an anisotropic XXZ spin chain describing the one-loop anomalous dimensions of the corresponding operators and find a remarkable agreement for all values of the deformation parameter. We discuss some of the properties of the Bethe Ansatz for this spin chain, solve the Bethe equations for small number of excitations and comment on higher loop properties of the dilatation operator. With the goal of going beyond the leading order in the 't Hooft expansion we derive the analog of the Bethe equations on the string-theory side, and show that they coincide with the thermodynamic limit of the Bethe equations for the spin chain. We also compute the 1/J corrections to the anomalous dimensions of operators with large R-charge (corresponding to strings with angular momentum J) and match them to the 1-loop corrections to the fast string energies. Our results suggest that the impressive agreement between the gauge theory and semiclassical strings in AdS_5 x S^5 is part of a larger picture underlying the gauge/gravity duality.