Glueball Mass Spectrum From Supergravity

TL;DR

This work investigates glueball spectra for large‑N QCD in 3D and 4D using the gauge/gravity duality with AdS black-hole backgrounds, computing masses from dilaton and related supergravity wave equations. The resulting mass ratios show striking agreement with lattice data, despite the calculation being performed at strong UV coupling with a fixed ultraviolet cutoff, and the authors quantify leading string (alpha') corrections that drive negative, universal corrections to the masses at order $\lambda^{-3/2}$. They solve the 0^{++} states in both dimensions, and also extract spectra for 0^{--} and other SO(6) singlet modes, demonstrating a coherent pattern across dimensions that supports the utility of holographic methods for nonperturbative QCD-like theories. The analysis highlights that mass ratios are relatively insensitive to leading corrections, suggesting a degree of universality and guiding future studies of higher-spin glueballs and more complete decoupling of non-singlet modes as the continuum limit is approached.

Abstract

We calculate the spectrum of glueball masses in non-supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in three and four dimensions, based on a conjectured duality between supergravity and large N gauge theories. The glueball masses are obtained by solving supergravity wave equations in a black hole geometry. We find that the mass ratios are in good numerical agreement with the available lattice data. We also compute the leading (g_{YM}^2 N)^{-1} corrections to the glueball masses, by taking into account stringy corrections to the supergravity action and to the black hole metric. We find that the corrections to the masses are negative and of order (g_{YM}^2N)^{-3/2}. Thus for a fixed ultraviolet cutoff the masses decrease as we decrease the 't Hooft coupling, in accordance with our expectation about the continuum limit of the gauge theories.