English

Exceptional conformal anomaly of null polygonal Wilson loops

High Energy Physics - Theory 2015-06-16 v2

Abstract

We analyse the breaking of conformal invariance for null polygonal Wilson loops in N=4{\cal N}=4 SYM beyond that induced by the UV divergences due to the cusps. It only shows up in exceptional configurations, where the polygon intersects the critical light cone of an inversion or a special conformal transformation. In comparison with the related study for the Euclidean version by Drukker and Gross, we find different leading terms both for weak as well as for strong coupling. Hence the conformal anomaly due to intersections of a null polygon with a critical light cone defines a new universal function of the coupling constant.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1307.6341,
  title  = {Exceptional conformal anomaly of null polygonal Wilson loops},
  author = {Harald Dorn},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1307.6341},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

17 pages, 7 figures, sign error in (20) corrected, comment on smooth space-like contours added, version to appear in JHEP