2016/01/31 by Alberto Faraggi, Leopoldo A. Pando Zayas, Guillermo A. Silva +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/jhep04(2016)053
published as JHEP 1604:053,2016 · 5 pages; v2: 43 pages, long version fixing a mistake and altering the conclusions
arxiv created 2016/02/10 · arxiv updated 2016/04/12
We consider certain 1/4 BPS Wilson loop operators in SU(N) \cal N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, whose expectation value can be computed exactly via supersymmetric localization. Holographically, these operators are mapped to fundamental strings in AdS5 x S5. The string on-shell action reproduces the large N and large coupling limit of the gauge theory expectation value and, according to the AdS/CFT correspondence, there should also be a precise match between subleading corrections to these limits. We perform a test of such match at next-to-leading order in string theory, by deriving the spectrum of quantum fluctuations around the classical string solution and by computing the corresponding 1-loop effective action. We discuss in detail the supermultiplet structure of the fluctuations. To remove a possible source of ambiguity in the ghost zero mode measure, we compare the 1/4 BPS configuration with the 1/2 BPS one, dual to a circular Wilson loop. We find a discrepancy between the string theory result and the gauge theory prediction, confirming a previous result in the literature. We are able to track the modes from which this discrepancy originates, as well as the modes that by themselves would give the expected result.