The Intermediate Coupling Regime in the AdS/CFT Correspondence

TL;DR

This paper investigates the AdS/CFT correspondence across different coupling regimes, revealing a mismatch between weak and strong coupling and proposing interpretations for this discrepancy.

Contribution

It introduces a squaring relation for the imaginary part of holographic scattering and discusses the implications of the coupling mismatch in the correspondence.

Findings

Identifies a mismatch between weak and strong 't Hooft coupling regimes.

Proposes a squaring relation for the imaginary part of scattering amplitudes.

Discusses potential interpretations and implications of the mismatch.

Abstract

The correspondence between the 't Hooft limit of N=4 super Yang-Mills theory and tree-level IIB superstring theory on AdS(5)xS(5) in a Ramond-Ramond background at values of lambda=g^2 N ranging from infinity to zero is examined in the context of unitarity. A squaring relation for the imaginary part of the holographic scattering of identical string fields in the two-particle channels is found, and a mismatch between weak and strong 't Hooft coupling is pointed out within the correspondence. Several interpretations and implications are proposed.