1999/02/28 by Gregory Gabadadze
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Charge (physics) #Compactification (mathematics) #Field theory (psychology) #Gauge theory #Instanton #Mathematical physics #Mathematics #Non-critical string theory #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Pure mathematics #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Quantum gravity #Quantum mechanics #Relationship between string theory and quantum field theory #String (physics) #String field theory #String theory #Theoretical physics #Vacuum state #Yang–Mills theory #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/s0550-3213(99)00244-8
published as Nucl.Phys.B552:194-208,1999 · 15 pages, RevTex; 2 references added
arxiv created 1999/03/04 · openalex publication_date 1999/07/01 · arxiv updated 2014/11/17 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The theta dependence of the vacuum energy in large N Yang-Mills theory has been studied some time ago by Witten using a duality of large N gauge theories with the string theory compactified on a certain space-time. We show that within the field theory context vacuum fluctuations of the topological charge give rise to the vacuum energy consistent with the string theory computation. Furthermore, we calculate 1/N suppressed corrections to the string theory result. The reconciliation of the string and field theory approaches is based on the fact that the gauge theory instantons carry zerobrane charge in the corresponding D-brane construction of Yang-Mills theory. Given the formula for the vacuum energy we study certain aspects of stability of the false vacua of the model for different realizations of the initial conditions. The vacuum structure appears to be different depending on whether N is infinite or, alternatively, large but finite.