English

Short Strings in Three-Dimensional Anti-de Sitter Space: from Weak to Strong Coupling

High Energy Physics - Theory 2026-03-31 v2

Abstract

We numerically solve the conjectured Quantum Spectral Curve for strings on AdS3×_3\timesS3×^3\timesT4^4 with R--R charge from weak to strong coupling. At strong coupling, the spectrum organises into flat-space string mass levels with universal square-root scaling in the string tension at leading order, and additional Kaluza-Klein fine-splitting at subleading order. At weak coupling, the energies are determined by a nearest-neighbour Bethe Ansatz, with universal subleading corrections that are suppressed at large volume.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.21992,
  title  = {Short Strings in Three-Dimensional Anti-de Sitter Space: from Weak to Strong Coupling},
  author = {Simon Ekhammar and Nikolay Gromov and Bogdan Stefański and Charles Thull},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.21992},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

5 pages, 1 figure. Version 2: added 2 footnotes, improved wording of appendix III

R2 v1 2026-07-01T09:26:08.541Z