Spiky strings, lightlike Wilson loops, and pp-wave anomaly
- Department of Physics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-2036 (United States)
We consider rigid rotating closed strings with spikes in AdS{sub 5} dual to certain higher twist operators in N=4 SYM theory. In the limit of large spin when the spikes reach the boundary of AdS{sub 5}, the solutions with different numbers of spikes are related by conformal transformations, implying that their energy is determined by the same function of the 't Hooft coupling f({lambda}) that appears in the anomalous dimension of twist 2 operators or in the cusp anomaly. In the limit when the number of spikes goes to infinity, we find an equivalent description in terms of a string moving in an AdS pp-wave background. From the boundary theory point of view, the corresponding description is based on the gauge theory living in a 4d pp-wave space. Then, considering a charge moving at the speed of light, or a null Wilson line, we find that the integrated energy-momentum tensor has a logarithmic UV divergence that we call the 'pp-wave anomaly'. The AdS/CFT correspondence implies that, for N=4 SYM, this pp-wave anomaly should have the same value as the cusp anomaly. We verify this at lowest order in SYM perturbation theory. As a side result of our string theory analysis, we find new open string solutions in the Poincare patch of the standard AdS space which end on a lightlike Wilson line and also in two parallel lightlike Wilson lines at the boundary.
- OSTI ID:
- 21205234
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 77, Issue 12; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.77.126005; (c) 2008 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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