2014/10/05 by Veronika E. Hubeny, Hubeny, Veronika E., Gordon W. Semenoff +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1410.1171
openalex publication_date 2014/10/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We consider the AdS bulk dual to an external massive quark in SYM following an arbitrary trajectory on Minkowski background. While a purely outgoing boundary condition on the gluonic field allows one to express the corresponding string worldsheet in a closed form, the setup has curious consequences. In particular, we argue that any quark whose trajectory on flat spacetime approaches that of a light ray in the remote past (as happens e.g. in the case of uniform acceleration) must necessarily be accompanied by an anti-quark. This is puzzling from the field theory standpoint, since one would expect that a sole quark following any timelike trajectory should be allowed. We explain the resolution in terms of boundary and initial conditions. We analyze the configuration in global AdS, which naturally suggests a modification to the boundary conditions allowing for a single accelerated quark without accompanying anti-quark. We contrast this resolution with earlier proposals.