2015/12/31 by V. Forini, V. Giangreco M. Puletti, L. Griguolo +2 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/jhep02(2016)105
References added, comments in introduction and conclusions added, it matches published version
arxiv created 2016/02/08 · arxiv updated 2016/03/23
We study the strong coupling behaviour of 1/4-BPS circular Wilson loops (a family of "latitudes") in \cal N=4 Super Yang-Mills theory, computing the one-loop corrections to the relevant classical string solutions in AdS5×S5. Supersymmetric localization provides an exact result that, in the large 't Hooft coupling limit, should be reproduced by the sigma-model approach. To avoid ambiguities due to the absolute normalization of the string partition function, we compare the ratio between the generic latitude and the maximal 1/2-BPS circle: Any measure-related ambiguity should simply cancel in this way. We use Gel'fand-Yaglom method to calculate the relevant functional determinants, that present some complications with respect to the standard circular case. After a careful numerical evaluation of our final expression we still find disagreement with the localization answer: The difference is encoded into a precise "remainder function". We comment on the possible origin and resolution of this discordance.