Two universal results for Wilson loops at strong coupling

We study Wilson loops in string theory realizations of AdS/BCFT and wedge holography. The field theories are based on 3d $\mathcal N=4$ long quiver gauge theories engineered by D3, D5 and NS5 branes, and on BCFTs involving 4d $\mathcal N=4$ SYM coupled to such 3d theories. The holographic duals have geometry $AdS_4\times S^2\times S^2$ warped over a strip. We identify the holographic representation of antisymmetric Wilson loops associated with individual 3d gauge nodes in ter...

In this paper we find D-brane descriptions of some of new open string solutions that were found in 0804.3438[hep-th]. These D5-brane and D3-brane configurations give gravitational dual descriptions of Wilson loops in some particular representations.

The generating function for all antisymmetric characters of a Wilson loop matrix in SU(N) Yang Mills theory is the partition function of a fermion living on the curve describing the loop. This generalizes to fermion subsystems living on higher dimensional submanifolds, for example, surfaces. This write-up also contains some extra background, in response to some questions raised during the oral presentation.

We study a recently discovered family of 1/8-BPS supersymmetric Wilson loops in N=4 super Yang-Mills theory and their string theory duals. The operators are defined for arbitrary contours on a two-sphere in space-time, and they were conjectured to be captured perturbatively by 2d bosonic Yang-Mills theory. In the AdS dual, they are described by pseudo-holomorphic string surfaces living on a certain submanifold of AdS_5 x S^5. We show that the regularized area of these string ...

It was suggested in hep-th/0002106, that semiclassically, a partition function of a string theory in the 5 dimensional constant negative curvature space with a boundary condition at the absolute satisfy the loop equation with respect to varying the boundary condition, and thus the partition function of the string gives the expectation value of a Wilson loop in the 4 dimensional QCD. In the paper, we present the geometrical framework, which reveals that the equations of motion...

Within the electrostatic formulation of holographic duals to (balanced) conformal quivers in five and three dimensions, we study Wilson loops in antisymmetric representations. We derive general expressions for various quantities participating in the formalism (VEV of Wilson loops, representation, gauge-node) and apply these to examples, connecting some results present in the bibliography. In the case of three dimensional quivers, we present a relation between Wilson loops in ...

Let $\mathfrak{g}$ be a simple Lie algebra. We study 1/2-BPS Wilson loops of supersymmetric 5d $\mathfrak{g}$-type quiver gauge theories on a circle, in a non-trivial instanton background. The Wilson loops are codimension 4 defects of the gauge theory, and their interaction with self-dual instantons is captured by a modified 1d ADHM quantum mechanics. We compute the partition function as its Witten index. This index is a "$qq$-character" of a finite-dimensional irreducible re...

The Polyakov loop of an operator in the anti-symmetric representation in N=4 SYM theory on spacial R^3 is calculated, to leading order in 1/N and at large 't Hooft coupling, by solving the saddle point equations of the corresponding quantum impurity model. Agreement is found with previous results from the supergravity dual, which is given by a D5-brane in an asymptotically AdS_5 x S^5 black brane background. It is shown that the azimuth angle, at which the dual D5-brane wraps...

We consider systems of Dp branes in the presence of a nonzero B field. We study the corresponding supergravity solutions in the limit where the branes worldvolume theories decouple from gravity. These provide dual descriptions of large N noncommutative field theories. We analyse the phase structure of the theories and the validity of the different description. We provide evidence that in the presence of a nonzero B field the worldvolume theory of D6 branes decouples from grav...

We study loop corrections to scattering amplitudes in the world-volume theory of a probe D3-brane, which is described by the supersymmetric Dirac-Born-Infeld theory. We show that the D3-brane loop superamplitudes can be obtained from the tree-level superamplitudes in the world-volume theory of a probe M5-brane (or D5-brane). The M5-brane theory describes self-interactions of an abelian tensor supermultiplet with $(2,0)$ supersymmetry, and the tree-level superamplitudes are gi...