Related papers: Wilson loops, holomorphic anomaly equations and bl…
We explicitly construct the fully back-reacted half-BPS solutions in Type IIB supergravity which are dual to Wilson loops with 16 supersymmetries in $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills. In a first part, we use the methods of a companion paper…
We will argue that the 1/2 BPS Wilson loops in the anti-symmetric representations in the $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills (SYM) theory exhibit a phase transition at some critical value of the 't Hooft coupling of order $N^2$. In the matrix…
We study circular BPS Wilson loops in the $\mathcal{N}=2$ superconformal $n$-node quiver theories at large $N$ and strong 't Hooft coupling by using localization. We compute the expectation values of Wilson loops in the limit when the 't…
For ${\cal N}=2^*$ theory with $U(N)$ gauge group we evaluate expectation values of Wilson loops in representations described by a rectangular Young tableau with $n$ rows and $k$ columns. The evaluation reduces to a two-matrix model and we…
In this paper we develop a blow up analysis for solutions of a planar semilinear elliptic equation involving exponential nonlinearities. Such solutions describe cosmic strings, and we show how their blow up behaviour is characterised by new…
We study supersymmetric Wilson loops from a geometrical perspective. To this end, we propose a new formulation of these operators in terms of an integral form associated to the immersion of the loop into a supermanifold. This approach…
Wilson loops are calculated within the AdS/CFT correspondence by finding a classical solution to the string equations of motion in AdS_5 x S^5 and evaluating its action. An important fact is that this sigma-model used to evaluate the Wilson…
We study the supersymmetric circular Wilson loops of N=4 super Yang-Mills in large representations of the gauge group. In particular, we obtain the spectral curves of the matrix model which captures the expectation value of the loops. These…
In these lectures we describe the attempt to extract the expectation values of Wilson loops from the string/gauge correspondence. We start with the original calculation in $AdS_5$. It is then extended to the non-conformal background of…
F-theory compactifications on appropriate local elliptic Calabi-Yau manifolds engineer six dimensional superconformal field theories and their mass deformations. The partition function $Z_{top}$ of the refined topological string on these…
We present a large new family of Wilson loop operators in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. For an arbitrary curve on the three dimensional sphere one can add certain scalar couplings to the Wilson loop so it preserves at least two…
The standard prescription for computing Wilson loops in the AdS/CFT correspondence in the large coupling regime and tree-level involves minimizing the string action. In many cases the action has more than one saddle point as in the simple…
We study the resurgent structures of Wilson loops in refined topological string theory. We argue that the Borel singularities should be integral periods, and that the associated Stokes constants are refined Donaldson-Thomas invariants, just…
We consider the expectation value $\langle \cal W \rangle$ of the circular BPS Wilson loop in ${\cal N}=2$ superconformal $SU(N)$ gauge theory containing a vector multiplet coupled to two hypermultiplets in rank-2 symmetric and…
We compute the expectation value of the 1/2 BPS circular Wilson loop operator in ABJ(M) theory at two loops in perturbation theory. Our result turns out to be in exact agreement with the weak coupling limit of the prediction coming from…
In this thesis we consider four dimensional N=2 superconformal field theories, in presence of line defects such as Wilson loops. In this set up, using supersymmetric localization, we compute many observables, such as the vacuum expectation…
Type IIB string theory on AdS$_3 \times S^3\times T^4$ with RR flux as the near-horizon limit of the D1-D5 solution is expected to be dual to a (4,4) supersymmetric 2d CFT parametrized by the integers $Q_1,Q_5$ and other moduli. It is…
We compare heterotic string models on orbifolds with supergravity models on smooth compact spaces, obtained by resolving the orbifold singularities. Our main focus is on heterotic E8xE8 models on the resolution of the compact T^6/Z_3…
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…
We construct new large classes of BPS Wilson hyperloops in three-dimensional ${\cal N}=4$ quiver Chern-Simons-matter theory on $S^3$. The main strategy is to start with the 1/2 BPS Wilson loop of this theory, choose any linear combination…