BPS Wilson Loops on S^2 at Higher Loops
Abstract
We consider supersymmetric Wilson loops of the variety constructed by Drukker, Giombi, Ricci, and Trancanelli, whose spatial contours lie on a two-sphere. Working to second order in the 't Hooft coupling in planar N=4 Supersymmetric Yang-Mills Theory (SYM), we compute the vacuum expectation value of a wavy-latitude and of a loop composed of two longitudes. We evaluate the resulting integrals numerically and find that the results are consistent with the zero-instanton sector calculation of Wilson loops in 2-d Yang-Mills on S^2 performed by Bassetto and Griguolo. We also consider the connected correlator of two distinct latitudes to third order in the 't Hooft coupling in planar N=4 SYM. We compare the result in the limit where the latitudes become coincident to a perturbative calculation in 2-d Yang-Mills on S^2 using a light-cone Wu-Mandelstam-Leibbrandt prescription. We are not able to calculate the SYM result at the required order in the separation between the latitudes necessary for a match with 2-d Yang-Mills; the result, however, does not preclude such a match.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0804.4098,
title = {BPS Wilson Loops on S^2 at Higher Loops},
author = {Donovan Young},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0804.4098},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
39 pages, 15 figures. v2 references added, minor cosmetic changes. v3 minor error in eq. (40) corrected. v4 error in coincident limit of correlator corrected; claims of disagreement with 2-d Yang-Mills retracted