Open Strings from N=4 Super Yang-Mills

TL;DR

Open Strings From N=4 Super Yang-Mills shows how open strings arise in AdS/CFT by studying fluctuations around heavy R-charge states dual to giant gravitons. Using a Penrose limit, the authors reconstruct open-string worldsheets and spectra from Yang-Mills degrees of freedom, including multiple coincident giants that yield G^2 open-string modes and a U(G) worldvolume theory. They map spacetime energies to conformal dimensions of non-BPS operators, find finite anomalous dimensions at large N, and reproduce the open-string BMN-like spectrum with appropriate boundary-phase factors. The results indicate that large-N gauge theories contain open-string sectors and support the idea that different large-charge limits realize holographic duals to distinct string backgrounds, with potential implications for emergent gauge dynamics on brane worldvolumes.

Abstract

Exploiting insights on strings moving in pp-wave backgrounds, we show how open strings emerge from N = 4 SU(M) Yang-Mills theory as fluctuations around certain states carrying R-charge of order M. These states are dual to spherical D3-branes of AdS_5 x S^5 and we reproduce the spectrum of small fluctuations of these states from Yang Mills theory. When G such D3-branes coincide, the expected G^2 light degrees of freedom emerge. The open strings running between the branes can be quantized easily in a Penrose limit of the spacetime. Taking the corresponding large charge limit of the Yang-Mills theory, we reproduce the open string worldsheets and their spectra from field theory degrees of freedom.