Testing the AdS/CFT correspondence beyond large N

We test the conjectured relationship between N=4 super Yang-Mills theory in four dimensions and IIB supergravity compactified on $AdS_5\times S_5$ by computing the two- and three-point functions of R-symmetry currents. We observe that the integral expressions describing the general three-point correlator on the supergravity side have a structure similar to one-loop triangle diagrams in N=4 super Yang-Mills theory. This allows us to compare the expressions on both sides of the...

We review some recent progress in understanding the spectrum of energies/dimensions of strings/operators in AdS5 x S5 -- planar N=4 super Yang-Mills correspondence. We consider leading strong coupling corrections to the energy of lightest massive string modes in AdS5 x S5, which should be dual to members of the Konishi operator multiplet in the SYM theory. This determines the general structure of strong-coupling expansion of the anomalous dimension of the Konishi operator. Fo...

The strong version of Maldacena's AdS/CFT conjecture implies that the large N expansion of free N=4 super-YM theory describes an interacting string theory in the extreme limit of high spacetime curvature relative to the string length. String states may then be understood as composed of SYM string bits. We investigate part of the low-lying spectrum of the tensionless (zero-coupling) limit and find a large number of states that are not present in the infinite tension (strong-co...

N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory with gauge group SU(n) (n>=3) is believed to have two exactly marginal deformations which break the supersymmetry to N=1. We discuss the construction of the string theory dual to these deformations, in the supergravity approximation, in a perturbation series around the AdS_5 * S^5 solution. We construct explicitly the deformed solution at second order in the deformation. We show that deformations which are marginal but not exactly marginal...

We review the derivation of the S-matrix for planar N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory and type IIB superstring theory on an AdS5xS5 background. After deriving the S-matrix for the su(2) and su(3) sectors at the one-loop level based on coordinate Bethe ansatz, we show how su(2|2) symmetry leads to the exact asymptotic S-matrix up to an overall scalar function. We then briefly review the spectrum of bound states by relating these states to simple poles of the S-matrix. Final...

Compactification of Type IIB superstring on an $AdS_5 \times S^5/\Gamma$ background leads to SU(N) gauge field theories with prescribed matter representations. In the 't Hooft limit of large N such theories are conformally finite. For finite N and broken supersymmetry ($\cal N$ = 0) I derive the constraints to be two-loop conformal and examine the consequences for a wide choice of $\Gamma$ and its embedding $\Gamma \subset {\cal C}^3 (\supset S^5)$.

These are introductory lectures on the correspondence between SU(N) gauge theories and Superstring Theory in anti-de Sitter geometries (AdS). The subject combines a number of different topics, including supersymmetric field theory, classical and quantum physics of black holes, string theory, string dualities, conformal field theories (CFT), and quantum field theory in anti-de Sitter spaces. We also discuss applications of this AdS/CFT correspondence to the large $N$ dynamics ...

We relate the 10D IIB superstring (primarily free supergravity) expanded about AdS_5\timesS^5 to 4D N=4 Yang-Mills directly in superspace. The sphere becomes the CFT internal space of projective superspace, plus a coordinate counting the number of supergluons. The 32 fermionic coordinates of AdS become the 8 of the CFT in a spacecone gauge that manifestly preserves SO(3,1).SO(4). The PSU(2,2|4) algebra of AdS becomes the projective representation (plus the extra coordinate) o...

These lectures give an introduction to the novel duality relating type IIB string theory in a maximally supersymmetric plane-wave background to N=4, d=4, U(N) Super Yang-Mills theory in a particular large N and large R-charge limit due to Berenstein, Maldacena and Nastase. In the first part of these lectures the duality is derived from the AdS/CFT correspondence by taking a Penrose limit of the AdS_5 x S^5 geometry and studying the corresponding double-scaling limit on the ga...

We extend recent remarkable progress in the comparison of the dynamical energy spectrum of rotating closed strings in AdS_5xS^5 and the scaling weights of the corresponding non-near-BPS operators in planar N=4 supersymmetric gauge theory. On the string side the computations are feasible, using semiclassical methods, if angular momentum quantum numbers are large. This results in a prediction of gauge theory anomalous dimensions to all orders in the `t Hooft coupling lambda. On...