Holographic Wilson Loops

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that all half-BPS Wilson loops in N=4 SYM have dual descriptions via D5-branes or D3-branes in AdS_5xS^5, linking gauge theory operators to specific brane configurations.

Contribution

It establishes a gravitational dual for all half-BPS Wilson loops in N=4 SYM using D-brane configurations and shows their equivalence through bosonization.

Findings

All half-BPS Wilson loops correspond to D5-brane or D3-brane configurations.

The insertion of Wilson loops is represented by integrating out degrees of freedom on these branes.

D5-brane and D3-brane descriptions are related by bosonization.

Abstract

We show that all half-BPS Wilson loop operators in N=4 SYM -- which are labeled by Young tableaus -- have a gravitational dual description in terms of D5-branes or alternatively in terms of D3-branes in AdS_5xS^5. We prove that the insertion of a half-BPS Wilson loop operator in the cal N=4 SYM path integral is achieved by integrating out the degrees of freedom on a configuration of bulk D5-branes or alternatively on a configuration of bulk D3-branes. The bulk D5-brane and D3-brane descriptions are related by bosonization.