We study the quantum properties of certain BPS Wilson loops in ${\cal N}=4$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. They belong to a general family, introduced recently, in which the addition of particular scalar couplings endows generic loops on $S^3$ with a fraction of supersymmetry. When restricted to $S^2$, their quantum average has been further conjectured to be exactly computed by the matrix model governing the zero-instanton sector of YM$_2$ on the sphere. We perform a complete two-loop analysis on a class of cusped Wilson loops lying on a two-dimensional sphere, finding perfect agreement with the conjecture. The perturbative computation reproduces the matrix-model expectation through a highly non-trivial interplay between ladder diagrams and self-energies/vertex contributions, suggesting the existence of a localization procedure.
We show that the supersymmetric Wilson loops in IIB matrix model give a transition operator from reduced supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory to supersymmetric space-time theory. In comparison with Green-Schwarz superstring we identify the supersymmetric Wilson loops with the asymptotic states of IIB superstring. It is pointed out that the supersymmetry transformation law of the Wilson loops is the inverse of that for the vertex operators of massless modes in the U(N) open superstring with Dirichlet boundary condition.
We generalize the standard product integral formalism to incorporate Grassmann valued matrices and show that the resulting supersymmetric product integrals provide a natural framework for describing supersymmetric Wilson Lines and Wilson Loops. We use this formalism to establish the supersymmetric version of the non-Abelian Stokes theorem.
We give a path integral derivation of the annulus diagram in a supersymmetric theory of open and closed strings with Dbranes. We compute the pair correlation function of Wilson loops in the generic weakly coupled supersymmetric flat spacetime background with Dbranes. We obtain a -u^4/r^9 potential between heavy nonrelativistic sources in a supersymmetric gauge theory at short distances.
We study supersymmetric Wilson loop operators in ABJM theory from both sides of the AdS_4/CFT_3 correspondence. We first construct some supersymmetric Wilson loops. The perturbative computations are performed in the field theory side at the first two orders. A fundamental string solution ending on a circular loop is also studied.
We prove conjecture due to Erickson-Semenoff-Zarembo and Drukker-Gross which relates supersymmetric circular Wilson loop operators in the N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory with a Gaussian matrix model. We also compute the partition function and give a new matrix model formula for the expectation value of a supersymmetric circular Wilson loop operator for the pure N=2 and the N=2* supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on a four-sphere. A four-dimensional N=2 superconformal gauge theory is treated similarly.
We obtain an explicit expression for the supersymmetric Wilson loop in terms of chiral superfields and supercurrents in superspace. The result turns out to be different from what one would expect from the simple replacement of Lie algebra valued connection in the exponent with the corresponding super-Lie algebraic one. Genralizing the super particle coupling represented by the supersymmetric Wilson loop, we show that there exists a unique dimensionless coupling of the superstring to abelian supersymmetric gauge theories that respects all the known symmetries. The coupling is expressed in terms…
We study the 1-loop dilatation operator for insertions of composite operators in a generalized Wilson loop in ${\cal N}=4$ super Yang-Mills, which interpolates between the supersymmetric Wilson-Maldacena loop and the ordinary Wilson loop with no scalar coupling. For $SO(6)$ scalar insertions, we show that the 1-loop dilatation operator is integrable for the endpoints of the interpolation, i.e. either for the Wilson-Maldacena or the ordinary Wilson loop. Moreover, we also show that integrability persists for $SU(2|3)$ insertions in the ordinary Wilson loop, even when the term making the spin ch…
We classify bosonic $\mathcal{N}=(2,2)$ supersymmetric Wilson loops on arbitrary backgrounds with vector-like R-symmetry. These can be defined on any smooth contour and come in two forms which are universal across all backgrounds. We show that these Wilson loops, thanks to their cohomological properties, are all invariant under smooth deformations of their contour. At genus zero they can always be mapped to local operators and computed exactly with supersymmetric localisation. Finally, we find the precise map, under two-dimensional Seiberg-like dualities, of correlators of supersymmetric Wilso…
The Wilson (exact) renormalization group equations are used to determine the evolution of a general low energy N=1 supersymmetric action containing a U(1) gauge vector multiplet and a neutral chiral multiplet. The effective theory evolves towards satisfying a fixed relation where the Kähler potential and effective gauge coupling are obtained from a N=2 supersymmetric holomorphic prepotential.
We study supersymmetric Wilson loop operators in four-dimensional N=4 super Yang-Mills theory. We show that the contour of a supersymmetric Wilson loop is either an orbit of some conformal transformation of the space-time (case I), or an arbitrary contour in the subspace where local superalgebra generator is a pure spinor (case II). In the more interesting case II we find and classify all pairs (Q,W) of the supercharges and the corresponding operators modulo the action of the global symmetry group.
I construct 1/16, 1/8 and 1/4 BPS Wilson loops in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory and argue that expectation values of 1/4 BPS loops do not receive quantum corrections. At strong coupling, non-renormalization of supersymmetric Wilson loops implies subtle cancellations in the partition function of the AdS string with special boundary conditions. The cancellations are shown to occur in the semiclassical approximation.
We present a large new family of Wilson loop operators in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. For an arbitrary curve on the three dimensional sphere one can add certain scalar couplings to the Wilson loop so it preserves at least two supercharges. Some previously known loops, notably the 1/2 BPS circle, belong to this class, but we point out many more special cases which were not known before and could provide further tests of the AdS/CFT correspondence.
We show that the holomorphic Wilsonian beta-function of a renormalizable asymptotically free supersymmetric gauge theory with an arbitrary semi-simple gauge group, matter content, and renormalizable superpotential is exhausted at 1-loop with no higher loops and no non-perturbative contributions. This is a non-perturbative extension of the well known result of Shifman and Vainshtein.
In this paper we study Open Wilson Lines (OWL's) in the context of two Supersymmetric Yang Mills theories. First we consider four dimensional N=2 Supersymmetric Yang Mills Theory with hypermultiplets transforming in the fundamental representation of the gauge group, and find supersymmetric OWL's only in the superconformal versions of these theories. We then consider four dimensional N=4 SYM coupled to a three dimensional defect hypermultiplet. Here there is a semi-circular supersymmetric OWL, which is related to the ray by a conformal transformation. We perform a perturbative calculation of th…
We consider general supersymmetric Wilson loops in ABJM model, i.e. Chern-Simons-matter theory in 2+1 dimensions with N=6 supersymmetry. They are so-called Zarembo-type: the Wilson loops of our interest have generic contours in spacetime, but the scalar field coupling is arranged accordingly so that there are unbroken supersymmetries. Based on the supermatrix formulation of Wilson loops by Drukker and Trancanelli, we construct explicitly 1/6-BPS Wilson loops and check that their expectation value is protected using perturbation up to two loops. We also study the dual string configuration in Ad…
Renormalization group methods are used to determine the evolution of the low energy Wilson effective action for supersymmetric nonlinear sigma models in four dimensions. For the case of supersymmetric $CP^{(N-1)}$ models, the Kähler potential is determined exactly and is shown to exhibit a nontrivial ultraviolet fixed point in addition to a trivial infrared fixed point. The strong coupling behavior of the theory suggests the possible existence of additional relevant operators or nonperturbative degrees of freedom.
We study the dual gravity description of supersymmetric Wilson loops whose expectation value is unity. They are described by calibrated surfaces that end on the boundary of anti de-Sitter space and are pseudo-holomorphic with respect to an almost complex structure on an eight-dimensional slice of AdS_5 x S^5. The regularized area of these surfaces vanishes, in agreement with field theory non-renormalization theorems for the corresponding operators.
We study supersymmetric Wilson loops from a geometrical perspective. To this end, we propose a new formulation of these operators in terms of an integral form associated to the immersion of the loop into a supermanifold. This approach provides a unifying description of Wilson loops preserving different sets of supercharges, and clarifies the flow between them. Moreover, it allows to exploit the powerful techniques of super-differential calculus for investigating their symmetries. As remarkable examples, we discuss supersymmetry and kappa-symmetry invariance.
We derive the Wilsonian renormalization group equation in two dimensional ${\cal N}=2$ supersymmetric nonlinear sigma models. This equation shows that the sigma models on compact Einstein Kähler manifolds are aymptotically free. This result is gerenal and does not depend on the specific forms of the Kähler potentials. We also examine the renormalization group flow in a new model which connects two manifolds with different global symmetries.
Based on the AdS/CFT correspondence, string theory has given exact predictions for circular Wilson loops in U(N) ${\cal N}=4$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory to all orders in a 1/N expansion. These Wilson loops can also be derived from Random Matrix Theory. In this paper we show that the result is generically insensitive to details of the Random Matrix Theory potential. We also compute all higher $k$-point correlation functions, which are needed for the evaluation of Wilson loops in arbitrary irreducible representations of U(N).
We prove that in the limit when its insertion points become pairwise null-separated, the ratio of certain n-point correlation functions in N=4 SYM is equal to a supersymmetric Wilson loop on twistor space, acting in the adjoint representation. In the planar limit, each of these objects reduces to the square of the complete n-particle planar superamplitude. Our proof is at the level of the integrand.
We study IR/UV mixing effects in noncommutative supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories with gauge group U(N) using background field perturbation theory. We compute three- and four-point functions of background fields, and show that the IR/UV mixed contributions to these correlators can be reproduced from an explicitly gauge-invariant effective action, which is expressed in terms of open Wilson lines.
We study a general class of supersymmetric Wilson loops operator in N = 4 super Yang-Mills theory, obtained as orbits of conformal transformations. These loops are the natural generalization of the familiar circular Wilson-Maldacena operator and their supersymmetric properties are encoded into a Killing spinor that is not pure. We present a systematic analysis of their scalar couplings and of the preserved supercharges, modulo the action of the global symmetry group, both in the compact and in the non-compact case. The quantum behavior of their expectation value is also addressed, in the simpl…
We study the algebra of BPS Wilson loops in 3d gauge theories with N=2 supersymmetry and Chern-Simons terms. We argue that new relations appear on the quantum level, and that in many cases this makes the algebra finite-dimensional. We use our results to propose the mapping of Wilson loops under Seiberg-like dualities and verify that the proposed map agrees with the exact results for expectation values of circular Wilson loops. In some cases we also relate the algebra of Wilson loops to the equivariant quantum K-ring of certain quasi projective varieties. This generalizes the connection between…
We present results for the three-loop universal anomalous dimension of Wilson twist-2 operators in the N=4 Supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. These expressions are obtained by extracting the most complicated contributions from the three-loop anomalous dimensions in QCD. This result is in an agreement with the hypothesis of the integrability of N=4 Supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in the context of AdS/CFT-correspondence.
We consider the small deformation of the point-like Wilson loop in the 3-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=6$ superconformal Chern-Simons theory. By Taylor expansion of the point-like Wilson loop in powers of the loop variables, we obtain the BPS operators that correspond to the excited string states of the dual IIA string theory on the pp wave background. The BPS conditions of the Wilson loop constrain both the loop variables and the forms of the operators obtained in the Taylor expansion.
We extend the Wilson renormalization group (RG) to supersymmetric theories. As this regularization scheme preserves supersymmetry, we exploit the superspace technique. To set up the formalism we first derive the RG flow for the massless Wess-Zumino model and deduce its perturbative expansion. We then consider N=1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills and show that the local gauge symmetry -broken by the regularization- can be recovered by a suitable choice of the RG flow boundary conditions. We restrict our analysis to the first loop, the generalization to higher loops presenting no difficulty due to the …
Following Polchinski and Sully (arXiv:1104.5077), we consider a generalized Wilson loop operator containing a constant parameter $ζ$ in front of the scalar coupling term, so that $ζ=0$ corresponds to the standard Wilson loop, while $ζ=1$ to the locally supersymmetric one. We compute the expectation value of this operator for circular loop as a function of $ζ$ to second order in the planar weak coupling expansion in N=4 SYM theory. We then explain the relation of the expansion near the two conformal points $ζ=0$ and $ζ=1$ to the correlators of scalar operators inserted on the loop. We also disc…
Large-N phase transitions occurring in massive N=2 theories can be probed by Wilson loops in large antisymmetric representations. The logarithm of the Wilson loop is effectively described by the free energy of a Fermi distribution and exhibits second-order phase transitions (discontinuities in the second derivatives) as the size of representation varies. We illustrate the general features of antisymmetric Wilson loops on a number of examples where the phase transitions are known to occur: N=2 SQCD with various mass arrangements and N=2* theory. As a byproduct we solve planar N=2 SQCD with thre…
We report a perturbative calculation of the expectation value of the infinite straight line Maldacena-Wilson loop in $\mathcal{N}=4$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory to order $g^6$. Thus, we extend the previous perturbative result by one order. The vacuum expectation value is reformulated in terms of a non-linear and non-local transformation, the Nicolai map, mapping the full functional measure of the interacting theory to that of a free bosonic theory. The results are twofold. The perturbative cancellations of the different contributions to the Maldacena-Wilson loop are by no means trivial an…
N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory exhibits a rather surprising duality of Wilson-loop vacuum expectation values and scattering amplitudes. In this paper, we investigate this correspondence at the diagram level. We find that one-loop triangles, one-loop boxes, and two-loop diagonal boxes can be cast as simple one- and two- parametric integrals over a single propagator in configuration space. We observe that the two-loop Wilson-loop "hard-diagram" corresponds to a four-loop hexagon Feynman diagram. Guided by the diagrammatic correspondence of the configuration-space propagator and loop Feynma…
We present two new families of Wilson loop operators in N= 6 supersymmetric Chern-Simons theory. The first one is defined for an arbitrary contour on the three dimensional space and it resembles the Zarembo's construction in N=4 SYM. The second one involves arbitrary curves on the two dimensional sphere. In both cases one can add certain scalar and fermionic couplings to the Wilson loop so it preserves at least two supercharges. Some previously known loops, notably the 1/2 BPS circle, belong to this class, but we point out more special cases which were not known before. They could provide furt…
We give a detailed critical discussion of the properties of Wilsonian effective actions, defined by integrating out all modes above a given scale $μ$. In particular, we provide a precise and relatively convenient prescription how to implement the infrared cutoff $μ$ in any loop integral that is manifestly Lorentz invariant and also preserves global linear symmetries such as e.g. supersymmetry. We discuss the issue of gauge invariance of effective actions in general and in particular when using background field gauge. Our prescription for the IR cutoff (as any such prescription) breaks the gaug…
We consider supersymmetric Wilson loops a la Zarembo in planar supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories in diverse dimensions. Using perturbation theory we show that these loops have trivial vacuum expectation values to second order in the 't Hooft coupling. We review the known superspace results which, for specific dimensions, extend this triviality to all orders in the 't Hooft coupling. Using the gauge/gravity correspondence, we construct the explicit dual fundamental string solutions corresponding to these Wilson loops for the case of circular geometry. We find that the regularized action of the…
This paper studies in great detail a family of supersymmetric Wilson loop operators in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory we have recently found. For a generic curve on an S^3 in space-time the loops preserve two supercharges but we will also study special cases which preserve 4, 8 and 16 supercharges. For certain loops we find the string theory dual explicitly and for the general case we show that string solutions satisfy a first order differential equation. This equation expresses the fact that the strings are pseudo-holomorphic with respect to a novel almost complex structure we construct…
We derive an infinite sequence of Schwinger-Dyson equations for $N=1$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. The fundamental and the only variable employed is the Wilson-loop geometrically represented in $N=1$ superspace: it organizes an infinite number of supersymmetrizing insertions into the ordinary Wilson-loop as a single entity. In the large $N_{c}$ limit, our equation becomes a closed loop equation for the one-point function of the Wilson-loop average.
We study the correlators of a recently discovered family of BPS Wilson loops in ${\cal N}=4$ supersymmetric U(N) Yang-Mills theory. When the contours lie on a two-sphere in the space-time, we propose a closed expression that is valid for all values of the coupling constant $g$ and for any rank $N$, by exploiting the suspected relation with two-dimensional gauge theories. We check this formula perturbatively at order ${\cal O}(g^4)$ for two latitude Wilson loops and we show that, in the limit where one of the loops shrinks to a point, logarithmic corrections in the shrinking radius are absent a…
We continue our study of the correlators of a recently discovered family of BPS Wilson loops in N=4 supersymmetric U(N) Yang-Mills theory. We perform explicit computations at weak coupling by means of analytical and numerical methods finding agreement with the exact formula derived from localization. In particular we check the localization prediction at order g^6 for different BPS "latitude" configurations, the N=4 perturbative expansion reproducing the expected results within a relative error of 10^(-4). On the strong coupling side we present a supergravity evaluation of the 1/8 BPS correlato…
We consider soliton solutions in AdS$_{4}$ with a flat slicing and Wilson loops around one cycle. We study the phase structure and find the ground state and identify supersymmetric solutions as a function of the Wilson loops. We work in the context of a scalar field truncation of gauged $\mathcal{N}=8$ supergravity, where all the dilatons are equal and all the axions vanish in the STU model. In this theory, we construct new soliton solutions parameterized by two Wilson lines. We find that there is a degeneracy of supersymmetric solutions. We also show that, for alternate boundary conditions, t…
Correlators of local operators inserted on a straight Wilson loop in a conformal gauge theory have the structure of a one-dimensional "defect" CFT. As was shown in arXiv:1706.00756, in the case of supersymmetric Wilson-Maldacena loop in $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM one can compute the strong-coupling contributions to 4-point correlators of operator insertions by starting with the AdS$_5 \times S^5$ string action expanded near the AdS$_2$ minimal surface and evaluating the corresponding AdS$_2$ Witten diagrams. We perform the analogous computations in the non-supersymmetric case of the standard Wilson l…
We examine the one-loop partition function describing the fluctuations of the superstring in a Schwarzschild-AdS$_5\times S^5$ background. On the bosonic side, we demonstrate the one-loop equivalence of the Nambu-Goto action and the Polyakov action for a general worldsheet, while on the fermionic side, we consider the reduction of the ten-dimensional Green-Schwarz fermion action to a two-dimensional worldsheet action. We derive the partition functions of the worldsheets corresponding to both straight and parallel Wilson lines. We show that the UV divergences of the functional determinants in t…
We study instanton corrections to the vacuum expectation value (VEV) of 1/6 BPS Wilson loops in ABJM theory from the Fermi gas approach. We mainly consider Wilson loops in the fundamental representation and winding Wilson loops, but we also initiate the study of Wilson loops with two boundaries. We find that the membrane instanton corrections to the Wilson loop VEV are determined by the refined topological string in the Nekrasov-Shatashvili limit, and the pole cancellation mechanism between membrane instantons and worldsheet instantons works also in the Wilson loop VEVs as in the case of the p…
We show that generic three-dimensional $\mathcal N=2$ quiver super Chern-Simons-matter theories admit Bogomol'nyi-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS) Drukker-Trancanelli (DT) type Wilson loops. We investigate both Wilson loops along timelike infinite straight lines in Minkowski spacetime and circular Wilson loops in Euclidean space. In Aharnoy-Bergman-Jafferis-Maldacena theory, we find that generic BPS DT type Wilson loops preserve the same number of supersymmetries as Gaiotto-Yin type Wilson loops. There are several free parameters for generic BPS DT type Wilson loops in the construction, and supersymme…
In this paper, we investigate the 1/4 BPS Wilson-'t Hooft loops in $\mathcal{N}$=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. We use the bulk D3-brane solutions with both electric and magnetic charges on its world-volume to describe some of 1/4 BPS Wilson-'t Hooft loops. The D3-brane supersymmetric solutions are derived form requiring $κ$-symmetry. We find the two consistent constraints for Killing spinors and calculate the conserved charges of straight 1/4 BPS Wilson-'t Hooft loops and expectation values of circular 1/4 BPS Wilson-'t Hooft loops separately.
We solve explicitly a closed, linear loop equation for the SU(2) Wilson loop average on a two-dimensional plane and generalize the solution to the case of the SU(N) Wilson loop average with an arbitrary closed contour. Furthermore, the flat space solution is generalized to any two-dimensional manifold for the SU(2) Wilson loop average and to any two-dimensional manifold of genus 0 for the SU(N) Wilson loop average.
We study Wilson loops in the three-dimensional N=6 supersymmetric Chern-Simons theory recently constructed by Aharony, Bergman, Jafferis and Maldacena, that is conjectured to be dual to type IIA string theory on AdS_4 x CP^3. We construct loop operators in the Chern-Simons theory which preserve 1/6 of the supercharges and calculate their expectation value up to 2-loop order at weak coupling. The expectation value at strong coupling is found by constructing the string theory duals of these operators. For low dimensional representations these are fundamental strings, for high dimensional represe…
We compute the expectation value of the 1/2 BPS circular Wilson loop in ABJM theory at two loops in perturbation theory. The result shows perfect agreement with the prediction from localization and the proposed framing factor.
We compute the large N limit of Wilson loop expectation values for a broad class of N=2 supersymmetric gauge theories defined on a general class of background three-manifolds M_3, diffeomorphic to S^3. We find a simple closed formula which depends on the background geometry only through a certain supersymmetric Killing vector field. The supergravity dual of such a Wilson loop is an M2-brane wrapping the M-theory circle, together with a complex curve in a self-dual Einstein manifold M_4, whose conformal boundary is M_3. We show that the regularized action of this M2-brane also depends only on t…
We derive Mandelstam formulae for two generalisations of the Wilson loop. In these generalisations path-ordering of Lie algebra generators is replaced by an anti-commuting one dimensional field theory along the loop. We extend the calculation to the N=1 super-Wilson loop by introducing a superpartner for the additional field.
It is argued that whereas supersymmetry requires the instanton contribution to the expectation value of a straight Wilson line in the N=4 supersymmetric SU(2) Yang-Mills theory to vanish, it is not required to vanish in the case of a circular Wilson loop. A non-vanishing value can arise from a subtle interplay between a divergent integral over bosonic moduli and a vanishing integral over fermionic moduli. The one-instanton contribution to such Wilson loops is explicitly evaluated in semi-classical approximation. The method utilizes the symmetries of the problem to perform the integration over …
We make use of product integrals to provide an unambiguous mathematical representation of Wilson line and Wilson loop operators. Then, drawing upon various properties of product integrals, we discuss such properties of these operators as approximating them with partial sums, their convergence, and their behavior under gauge transformations. We also obtain a surface product integral representation for the Wilson loop operator. The result can be interpreted as the non-abelian version of Stokes theorem.
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 t…
A duality relation has been proposed between the planar gluon MHV amplitudes and light-like Wilson loops in N=4 super Yang-Mills. At six-point two-loop, the results for the planar gluon MHV amplitude and for the light-like Wilson loop agree, but they both differ from the Bern-Dixon-Smirnov ansatz by a finite remainder function. Recently Del Duca, Duhr and Smirnov presented an analytical result for the two-loop hexagon Wilson loop remainder function in general kinematics. Their result is rather lengthy, and the dependence on the conformal cross ratios appears in a complicated way. Here we prese…
Perturbative computations of the expectation value of the Wilson loop in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory are reported. For the two special cases of a circular loop and a pair of anti-parallel lines, it is shown that the sum of an infinite class of ladder-like planar diagrams, when extrapolated to strong coupling, produces an expectation value characteristic of the results of the AdS/CFT correspondence, $<W>\sim\exp((constant)\sqrt{g^2N})$. For the case of the circular loop, the sum is obtained analytically for all values of the coupling. In this case, the constant factor in front of $\sqr…
In this paper we study Wilson loops in various representations for finite and large values of the color gauge group for supersymmetric ${\cal N}=4$ gauge theories. We also compute correlators of Wilson loops in different representations and perform a check with the dual gravitational theory.
We generalize Nakajima-Yoshioka's blowup formula to calculate the partition functions counting the spectrum of bound states to half-BPS Wilson loop operators in 5d (and 6d) supersymmetric field theories. The partition function in the presence of a Wilson loop operator on the $Ω$-background is factorized when put on the blowup $\hat{\mathbb{C}}^2$ into two Wilson loop partition functions under the localization. This structure provides a set of blowup equations for Wilson loop operators. We explain how to formulate the blowup equations and solve them to compute the partition functions of Wilson …
The evolution equation for the 3 quark Wilson loop operator has been derived in the leading logarithm approximation within Balitsky high energy operator expansion.
It is known that the expectation value of Wilson loops in the Gross-Witten-Wadia (GWW) unitary matrix model can be computed exactly at finite $N$ for arbitrary representations. We study the perturbative and non-perturbative corrections of Wilson loops in the $1/N$ expansion, either analytically or numerically using the exact result at finite $N$. As a by-product of the exact result of Wilson loops, we propose a large $N$ master field of GWW model. This master field has an interesting eigenvalue distribution. We also study the Wilson loops in large representations, called Giant Wilson loops, an…
