English

Generalized quark-antiquark potential at weak and strong coupling

High Energy Physics - Theory 2015-05-28 v1

Abstract

We study a two-parameter family of Wilson loop operators in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory which interpolates smoothly between the 1/2 BPS line or circle and a pair of antiparallel lines. These observables capture a natural generalization of the quark-antiquark potential. We calculate these loops on the gauge theory side to second order in perturbation theory and in a semiclassical expansion in string theory to one-loop order. The resulting determinants are given in integral form and can be evaluated numerically for general values of the parameters or analytically in a systematic expansion around the 1/2 BPS configuration. We comment about the feasibility of deriving all-loop results for these Wilson loops.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1105.5144,
  title  = {Generalized quark-antiquark potential at weak and strong coupling},
  author = {Nadav Drukker and Valentina Forini},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1105.5144},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

43 pages: 15 comprising the main text and 25 for detailed appendices

R2 v1 2026-06-21T18:12:45.324Z