Giant Magnons

TL;DR

This paper identifies giant magnons in string theory, reconciling their periodic dispersion relation with the continuum worldsheet description, and computes the S-matrix, confirming gauge-string duality at strong coupling.

Contribution

It provides a string theory interpretation of giant magnons, demonstrating how to reconcile their dispersion relation with the worldsheet picture and computing the S-matrix at strong coupling.

Findings

Magnons are identified as specific string configurations.

The dispersion relation's periodicity is explained via a geometrical angle.

The S-matrix at large 't Hooft coupling matches previous conjectures.

Abstract

Studies of ${\cal N}=4$ super Yang Mills operators with large R-charge have shown that, in the planar limit, the problem of computing their dimensions can be viewed as a certain spin chain. These spin chains have fundamental ``magnon'' excitations which obey a dispersion relation that is periodic in the momentum of the magnons. This result for the dispersion relation was also shown to hold at arbitrary 't Hooft coupling. Here we identify these magnons on the string theory side and we show how to reconcile a periodic dispersion relation with the continuum worldsheet description. The crucial idea is that the momentum is interpreted in the string theory side as a certain geometrical angle. We use these results to compute the energy of a spinning string. We also show that the symmetries that determine the dispersion relation and that constrain the S-matrix are the same in the gauge theory and the string theory. We compute the overall S-matrix at large 't Hooft coupling using the string description and we find that it agrees with an earlier conjecture. We also find an infinite number of two magnon bound states at strong coupling, while at weak coupling this number is finite.