We describe a systematic approach for the evaluation of Witten diagrams for multi-loop scattering amplitudes of a conformally coupled scalar $ϕ^4$-theory in Euclidean AdS$_4$, by recasting the Witten diagrams as flat space Feynman integrals. We derive closed form expressions for the anomalous dimensions for all double-trace operators up to the second order in the coupling constant. We explain the relation between the flat space unitarity methods and the discontinuities of the short distance expansion on the boundary of Witten diagrams.
We investigate the possibility of generalizing Gopakumar's microscopic derivation [1] of Witten diagrams in large N free quantum field theory to interacting theories. For simplicity we consider a massless, matrix valued real scalar field with $Φ^h$ interaction in d-dimensions. Using Schwinger's proper time formulation and organizing the sum over Feynman graphs by the number of loops $\ell$, we show that the two-point function can be expressed as a sum over boundary-to-boundary propagators of bulk scalars in $AdS_{d+1}$ with mass determined by $\ell$.
The computation of CFT correlation functions via Witten diagrams in AdS space can be simplified via the Mellin transform. Recently a set of Feynman rules for tree-level Mellin space amplitudes has been proposed for scalar theories. In this note we derive these rules by explicitly evaluating all of the relevant Witten diagram integrals for the scalar phi^n theory. We also check that the rules reduce to the usual Feynman rules in the flat space limit.
We develop a new method for decomposing Witten diagrams into conformal blocks. The steps involved are elementary, requiring no explicit integration, and operate directly in position space. Central to this construction is an appealingly simple answer to the question: what object in AdS computes a conformal block? The answer is a "geodesic Witten diagram," which is essentially an ordinary exchange Witten diagram, except that the cubic vertices are not integrated over all of AdS, but only over bulk geodesics connecting the boundary operators. In particular, we consider the case of four-point func…
We calculate an unrefined limit of the superconformal index (the Schur-like index) of the Klebanov-Witten theory from the dual AdS side by using the recently developed giant graviton expansion method. Our formula includes multiple sums of the contribution of the D3-branes wrapped on three-cycles in the internal space. We numerically confirm the validity of our formula by comparing indices obtained by the formula with the gauge theory results.
In this paper we consider Witten diagrams at one loop in AdS space for scalar $ϕ^3+ϕ^4$ theory. After using Schwinger parametrization to trivialize the space-time loop integration, we extract the Mellin-Barnes representation for the one-loop corrections to the four-particle scattering up to an integration over the Schwinger parameters corresponding to the propagators of the internal particles running into the loop. We then discuss an approach to deal with those integrals.
We determine the Feynman rules for the minimal type A higher-spin gauge theory on AdS$_{d+1}$ at cubic order. In particular, we establish the quantum action at cubic order in de Donder gauge, including ghosts. We also give the full de Donder gauge propagators of higher-spin gauge fields and their ghosts. This provides all ingredients needed to quantise the theory at cubic order.
String equations for the vertex operators of type IIB on $AdS_3\times S^3$ background with NS-NS flux are calculated using Berkovits-Vafa-Witten formalism. With suitable field definitions, the linearized field equations for six-dimensional supergravity and a tensor multiplet on $AdS_3\times S^3$ are recovered from these. We also discuss the massless degrees of freedom that survive the $S^3$ Kaluza-Klein compactification and how our vertex operators are related to the vertex operators introduced by Giveon, Kutasov and Seiberg.
We construct the retarded Green function and the Hadamard function in the Lorentzian (d+1)-dimensional anti-de Sitter spacetime for the Poincaré coordinate by performing the mode integration directly. We explore the structure of singularities for the position-space Feynman propagator derived from them. The boundary scaling limits of the bulk Feynman propagator yield the bulk-boundary propagator and the boundary conformal correlation function with an extra factor.
Both celestial and momentum space amplitudes in four dimensions are beset by divergences resulting from spacetime translation and sometimes scale invariance. In this paper we consider a (linearized) marginal deformation of the celestial CFT for Yang-Mills theory which preserves 2D conformal invariance but breaks both spacetime translation and scale invariance and involves a chirally coupled massive scalar. The resulting celestial amplitudes are completely finite (apart from the usual soft and collinear divergences) and take the canonical CFT form. Moreover, we show they can be simply rewritten…
In this paper we find various new backgrounds in Type IIB, IIA and M-theory with an $AdS_3$-factor. The solutions are smooth and preserve small amounts of SUSY. These new backgrounds are found by application of non-Abelian T-duality (sometimes combined with T-duality) on the supergravity solution dual to the Klebanov-Witten CFT compactified to two dimensions. The field theory aspects encoded by these backgrounds are studied. We give a detailed account of conserved charges, central charges, entanglement entropy and Wilson loops. Further, we present a possible field theory interpretation for our…
Reduction technique for expanding the Feynman diagrams in AdS$_2$
I.E. Tamm Department of Theoretical Physics, P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute（P.N. 列别捷夫物理研究所 I.E. 塔姆理论物理系）；Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology（莫斯科物理技术学院）
Recently, a worldsheet dual to free ${\cal N}=4$ Super Yang-Mills has been proposed in terms of twistor variables for ${\rm AdS}_5$, in parallel to that for the ${\rm AdS}_3$ dual to the free symmetric orbifold CFT. In the latter case, holomorphic covering maps play a central role in determining correlators and are associated to Feynman diagrams. After recasting these maps in terms of the worldsheet twistor variables for ${\rm AdS}_3$, we generalise to ${\rm AdS}_5$. We propose stringy incidence relations and appropriate reality conditions for the twistor covering maps. For some special kinema…
In this paper we study an $AdS_5$ solution constructed using non-Abelian T-duality, acting on the Klebanov-Witten background. We show that this is dual to a linear quiver with two tails of gauge groups of increasing rank. The field theory dynamics arises from a D4-NS5-NS5' brane set-up, generalizing the constructions discussed by Bah and Bobev. These realize $\mathcal{N}=1$ quiver gauge theories built out of $\mathcal{N}=1$ and $\mathcal{N}=2$ vector multiplets flowing to interacting fixed points in the infrared. We compute the central charge using $a$-maximization, and show its precise agreem…
We investigate the use of the embedding formalism and the Mellin transform in the calculation of tree-level conformal correlation functions in $AdS$/CFT. We evaluate 5- and 6-point Mellin amplitudes in $ϕ^3$ theory and even a 12-pt diagram in $ϕ^4$ theory, enabling us to conjecture a set of Feynman rules for scalar Mellin amplitudes. The general vertices are given in terms of Lauricella generalized hypergeometric functions. We also show how to use the same combination of Mellin transform and embedding formalism for amplitudes involving fields with spin. The complicated tensor structures which …
We show the AdS/CFT correspondence between the conformal partial wave and the geodesic Witten diagram with anti-symmetric exchange. To this end, we introduce the embedding space formalism for anti-symmetric fields in AdS. Then we prove that the geodesic Witten diagram satisfies the conformal Casimir equation and the appropriate boundary condition. Furthermore, we discuss the connection between the geodesic Witten diagram and the shadow formalism by using the split representation of harmonic function for anti-symmetric fields. We also discuss the 3pt geodesic Witten diagrams and its extension t…
We present a formula for the holographic 4-point correlators in AdS$_3 \times S^3$ involving four single-trace operators of dimension $k, k, l, l$. As an input we use the supergravity results for the Heavy-Heavy-Light-Light correlators that can be derived by studying the linear fluctuations around known asymptotically AdS$_3 \times S^3$ geometries. When the operators of dimension $k$ and $l$ are in the same multiplet there are contributions due to the exchange of single-trace operators in the $t$ and $u$ channels, which are not captured by the approach mentioned above. However by rewriting the…
We develop a new embedding-space formalism for AdS$_4$ and CFT$_3$ that is useful for evaluating Witten diagrams for operators with spin. The basic variables are Killing spinors for the bulk AdS$_4$ and conformal Killing spinors for the boundary CFT$_3$. The more conventional embedding space coordinates $X^I$ for the bulk and $P^I$ for the boundary are bilinears in these new variables. We write a simple compact form for the general bulk-boundary propagator, and, for boundary operators of spin $\ell \geq 1$, we determine its conservation properties at the unitarity bound. In our CFT$_3$ formali…
We initiate the study of bound state scattering in AdS space at the level of Witten diagrams. For concreteness, we focus on the case with only scalar fields and analyze several basic diagrams which more general diagrams reduce to. We obtain closed form expressions for their Mellin amplitudes with arbitrary conformal dimensions, which exhibit interesting behavior. In particular, we observe that certain tree-level bound state Witten diagrams have the same structure as loop diagrams in AdS.
We consider three-parameter Yang-Baxter deformations of the $AdS_5\times T^{1,1}$ superstring for abelian $r$-matrices which are solutions of the classical Yang-Baxter equation. We find two new backgrounds which are dual to the dipole deformed Klebanov-Witten gauge theory and to the nonrelativistic Klebanov-Witten gauge theory with Schrödinger symmetry
We develop a framework for the reconstruction of the bulk theory dual to conformal field theory (CFT) without any assumption by means of a flow equation. To this end we investigate a minimal extension of the free flow equation and find that at a special parametrization the conformal transformation for a normalized smeared operator exactly becomes the isometry of anti-de Sitter space (AdS). By employing this special flow equation to O$(N)$ vector models, we explicitly show that the AdS geometry as well as the scalar field satisfying the GKP-Witten relation concurrently emerge in this framework.
We give a systematic procedure to evaluate conformal partial waves involving symmetric tensors for an arbitrary CFT$_d$ using geodesic Witten diagrams in AdS$_{d+1}$. Using this procedure we discuss how to draw a line between the tensor structures in the CFT and cubic interactions in AdS. We contrast this map to known results using three-point Witten diagrams: the maps obtained via volume versus geodesic integrals differ. Despite these differences, we show how to decompose four-point exchange Witten diagrams in terms of geodesic diagrams, and we discuss the product expansion of local bulk fiel…
In this paper we discuss geodesic Witten diagrams in generic holographic conformal field theories with boundary or defect. Boundary CFTs allow two different decompositions of two-point functions into conformal blocks: boundary channel and ambient channel. Building on earlier work, we derive a holographic dual of the boundary channel decomposition in terms of bulk-to-bulk propagators on lower dimensional AdS slices. In the situation in which we can treat the boundary or defect as a perturbation around pure AdS spacetime, we obtain the leading corrections to the two-point function both in bounda…
The Schwinger-Dyson equations for Green functions and 3-vertexes in planar approximation used 50 years ago in the earlier theory of conformal bootstrap are written in frames of the AdS/CFT correspondence. The technique of "Wightman-Witten" diagrams is used in calculations of the bubble bulk diagrams that permitted to obtain the values of conformal dimensions of primary operators in two models of the interacting bulk scalar fields which conformal dimensions obey "extremal" relation. Simple expressions for the four-point tree "Wightman-Witten" correlators of these primary operators are obtained …
We construct a generalization of Witten's Kaluza-Klein instanton, where a higher-dimensional sphere (rather than a circle as in Witten's instanton) collapses to zero size and the geometry terminates at a bubble of nothing, in a low energy effective theory of M theory. We use the solution to exhibit instability of non-supersymmetric AdS_5 vacua in M Theory compactified on positive Kaehler-Einstein spaces, providing a further evidence for the recent conjecture that any non-supersymmetric anti-de Sitter vacuum supported by fluxes must be unstable.
We expand on Klebanov and Witten's recent proposal for formulating the AdS/CFT correspondence using irregular boundary conditions. The proposal is shown to be correct to any order in perturbation theory.
At small AdS radius, the superstring on $AdS_5\times S^5$ was conjectured by Maldacena to be equivalent to ${\cal N}=4$ super-Yang-Mills at small `t Hooft coupling where thickened Feynman diagrams can be used to compute scattering amplitudes. It was previously shown that the pure spinor worldsheet action of the $AdS_5\times S^5$ superstring can be expressed as the sum of a BRST-trivial term and a `B-term' which is antisymmetric in worldsheet derivatives. Using the explicit form of the pure spinor vertex operators, it will be argued here that the free super-Yang-Mills Feynman diagrams are descr…
We develop a systematic framework to compute the conformal partial wave expansions (CPWEs) of tree-level four-point Witten diagrams with totally symmetric external fields of arbitrary mass and integer spin in AdS$_{d+1}$. Employing this framework, we determine the CPWE of a generic exchange Witten diagram with spinning exchanged field. As an intermediate step, we diagonalise the linear map between spinning three-point conformal structures and spinning cubic couplings in AdS. As a concrete application, we compute all exchange diagrams in the type A higher-spin gauge theory on AdS$_{d+1}$, which…
We develop the embedding formalism for odd dimensional Dirac spinors in AdS and apply it to the (geodesic) Witten diagrams including fermionic degrees of freedom. We first show that the geodesic Witten diagram (GWD) with fermion exchange is equivalent to the conformal partial waves associated with the spin one-half primary field. Then, we explicitly demonstrate the GWD decomposition of the Witten diagram including the fermion exchange with the aid of the split representation. The geodesic representation of CPW indeed gives the useful basis for computing the Witten diagrams.
We study local operator insertions on 1/2-BPS line defects in ABJM theory. Specifically, we consider a class of four-point correlators in the CFT$_1$ with SU$(1, 1|3)$ superconformal symmetry defined on the 1/2-BPS Wilson line. The relevant insertions belong to the short supermultiplet containing the displacement operator and correspond to fluctuations of the dual fundamental string in AdS$_4 \times \mathbb{C}\textrm{P}^3$ ending on the line at the boundary. We use superspace techniques to represent the displacement supermultiplet and we show that superconformal symmetry determines the four-po…
By appeal to Distribution Theory we discuss in rigorous fashion, without appealing to {\bf any conjecture} (as usually done by other authors), the boundary-bulk propagators for the scalar field, both in the non-massive and massive cases. These calculations, new in the literature as far as we know, are carried out in two instances: (i) when the boundary is a Euclidean space and (ii) when it is of Minkowskian nature. In this last case we compute also three propagators: Feynman's, Anti-Feynman's, and Wheeler's (half advanced plus half retarded). For an operator corresponding to scalar field we ob…
Departing from the observation that the Penrose limit of AdS_3 x S^3 is a group contraction in the sense of Inonu and Wigner, we explore the relation between the symmetric D-branes of AdS_3 x S^3 and those of its Penrose limit, a six-dimensional symmetric plane wave analogous to the four-dimensional Nappi--Witten spacetime. Both backgrounds are Lie groups admitting bi-invariant lorentzian metrics and symmetric D-branes wrap their (twisted) conjugacy classes. We determine the (twisted and untwisted) symmetric D-branes in the plane wave background and we prove the existence of a space-filling D5…
We explore AdS/CFT correspondence between geodesic Witten diagrams and conformal blocks (conformal partial waves) with an external symmetric traceless tensor field. We derive an expression for the conformal partial wave with an external spin-1 field and show that this expression is equivalent to the amplitude of the geodesic Witten diagram. We also show the equivalence by using conformal Casimir equation in embedding formalism. Furthermore, we extend the construction of the amplitude of the geodesic Witten diagram to an external arbitrary symmetric traceless tensor field. We show our construct…
The Witten-Yau theorem in the AdS/CFT correspondence conjectures that the conformal boundary to AdS space must possess a metric of non-negative scalar curvature for the conformal field theory defined thereon to be free of pathologies. By employing various tools from conformal geometry - such as almost Einstein structures, collapsing sphere products and tractor bundles - we rigorously prove this conjecture.
Witten diagrams are basic objects for studying dynamics in AdS space, and also play key roles in the analytic functional bootstrap. However, these diagrams are notoriously hard to evaluate, making it extremely difficult to search for recursion relations among them. In this note, we present simple methods to obtain recursion relations for exchange Witten diagrams from conformal block recursion relations. We discover a variety of new relations, including the dimensional reduction formulae for exchange Witten diagrams. In particular, we find a five-term recursion relation relating exchange Witten…
We study a Hanany-Witten set-up relevant to N = 2 superconformal field theories. We find the exact near-horizon solution for this 11-dimensional system which involves intersecting M5-branes. The metric describes a warped product of AdS_5 with a manifold with SU(2) x U(1) isometry.
Using AdS/CFT, we study the addition of an arbitrary number of backreacting flavors to the Klebanov-Witten theory, making many checks of consistency between our new Type IIB plus branes solution and expectations from field theory. We study generalizations of our method for adding flavors to all N=1 SCFTs that can be realized on D3-branes at the tip of a Calabi-Yau cone. Also, general guidelines suitable for the addition of massive flavor branes are developed.
We show that a generalization of the BCFW recursion relations gives a new and efficient method of computing correlation functions of the stress tensor or conserved currents in conformal field theories with an AdS_p dual, for p > 4, in the limit where the bulk theory is approximated by tree-level Yang-Mills or gravity. In supersymmetric theories, additional correlators of operators that live in the same multiplet as a conserved current or stress tensor can be computed by these means.
The SL(2, R) WZW model of strings on an ADS3 background is investigated in the spirit of J.Maldacena's and H.Ooguri's approach (hep-th/0001053) and (hep-th/0005183). Choosing a standard, but most general three-variable parametrization of the SL(2, R) group element g, the system of equations for the Operator Product Expansion (OPE) relations is analysed. In the investigated SL(2, R) case, this system is consistent if each three points on the complex plane lie on a certain hypersurface in CP3. A system of three nonlinear first-order differential equations has been obtained for the parametrizatio…
The main purpose of the report is to provide some argumentation that three seemingly distinct approaches of 1. Giveon, Kutasov and Seiberg (hep-th/9806194); 2. Hemming, Keski-Vakkuri (hep-th/0110252); Maldacena, Ooguri (hep-th/0001053) and 3. I. Bars (hep-th/9503205) can be investigated by applying the mathematical methods of integral geometry on the Lobachevsky plane, developed previously by Gel'fand, Graev and Vilenkin. All these methods can be used for finding the transformations, leaving the Kac-Moody and Virasoro algebras invariant. The near-distance limit of the Conformal Field Theory of…
Aspects of Witten Diagrams for Holographic Defects
Theoretical Physics Department, CERN（CERN理论物理部）；Department of Mathematics and Physics University of Haifa at Oranim（奥拉尼姆海法大学数学与物理系）；Department of Physics and Haifa Center for Physics and Astrophysics, University of Haifa（海法大学物理系和海法物理与天体物理中心）
We extend the Mellin representation of conformal field theory (CFT) to allow for conformal boundaries and interfaces. We consider the simplest holographic setup dual to an interface CFT - a brane filling an $AdS_{d}$ subspace of $AdS_{d+1}$ - and perform a systematic study of Witten diagrams in this setup. As a byproduct of our analysis, we show that geodesic Witten diagrams in this geometry reproduce interface CFT$_d$ conformal blocks, generalizing the analogous statement for CFTs with no defects.
We give a holographic description of global conformal blocks in two dimensional conformal field theory on the sphere and on the torus. We show that the conformal blocks for one-point functions on the torus can be written as Witten diagrams in thermal AdS. This is accomplished by deriving a general conformal Casimir equation for global conformal blocks, and showing that Witten diagrams obey the same equation. We study the semi-classical limit of n-point conformal blocks, and show that these equal the action of a network of bulk world-lines obeying appropriate geodesic equations. We give an alte…
In hep-th/9803002, Maldacena argued that in the light of the AdS/CFT correspondence as formulated by Witten and Gubser, Klebanov and Polyakov as a relation between partition functions, the expectation value of the Wilson loop in $\cal N$=4 SU(N) SYM is given by the worldsheet partition function with the action formulated on an $AdS_5\times S^5$ background and the world sheet ending on the loop on the boundary of $AdS_5$. What we propose to do in this paper is to provide some alternative arguments as to why it should be so.
We discuss a Coulomb gas realization of $n$-point correlation functions in the $SL(2,\mathbb{R})$ Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) model that is suitable to compute scattering amplitudes of winding strings in 3-dimensional Anti-de Sitter space at tree-level and one-loop. This is a refined version of previously proposed free-field realizations that, among other features, accomplishes to make the $H_3^+$ WZW-Liouville correspondence manifest.
