Related papers: A String Theory for Two-Dimensional Yang-Mills The…
Marchesini showed that the Fokker-Planck Hamiltonian for Yang-Mills theories is the loop operator. Jevicki and Rodrigues showed that the Fokker-Planck Hamiltonian of some matrix models co\"\i ncides with temporal gauge non-critical string…
We discuss the effective string picture for the confining regime of lattice gauge theories at zero and finite temperature. We present results of extensive Monte Carlo simulations - performed with the Luscher and Weisz algorithm - for SU(2)…
This Ph.D. thesis reaches two main results. The first one is represented by a detailed study, in Feynman gauge, of the perturbative ${\cal O}(g^4)$ contribution to a space-time Wilson loop, with respect to its (expected) Abelian-like time…
Linear confinement with Casimir scaling of the string tension in confining gauge theories is a consequence of a certain property of the Polyakov loop related to random matrices. This mechanism does not depend on the details of the theories…
The large-N limit of the expectation values of the Wilson loops corresponding to two-dimensional U(N) Yang-Mills and generalized Yang-Mills theories on a sphere are studied. The behavior of the expectation values of the Wilson loops both…
Lattice Gauge theories have been studied in the physics literature as discrete approximations to quantum Yang-Mills theory for a long time. Primary statistics of interest in these models are expectations of the so called "Wilson loop…
We examine how the average of double-winding Wilson loops depends on the number of color $N$ in the $SU(N)$ Yang-Mills theory. In the case where the two loops $C_1$ and $C_2$ are identical, we derive the exact operator relation which…
In this work we use constructs from the dual space of the semi-direct product of the Virasoro algebra and the affine Lie algebra of a circle to write a theory of gravitation which is a natural analogue of Yang-Mills theory. The theory…
The loop representation of quantum gravity has many formal resemblances to a background-free string theory. In fact, its origins lie in attempts to treat the string theory of hadrons as an approximation to QCD, in which the strings…
The standard Feynman diagrammatic approach to quantum field theories assumes that perturbation theory approximates the full quantum theory at small coupling even when a mathematically rigorous construction of the latter is absent. On the…
We investigate backgrounds of Type IIB string theory with null singularities and their duals proposed in hep-th/0602107. The dual theory is a deformed N=4 Yang-Mills theory in 3+1 dimensions with couplings dependent on a light-like…
We identify a universal finite-$N$ structure underlying Wilson loop expectations in lattice Yang-Mills, in any dimension $d\geq 2$, for gauge group $\mathrm{U}(N)$, and for arbitrary smooth central plaquette actions. The starting point is a…
We present a study of the effective string that describes the infrared dynamics of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory in three dimensions. By combining high-precision lattice simulation results for Polyakov-loop correlators at finite temperatures…
We carry out further analysis of the Hamiltonian approach to Yang-Mills theory in 2+1 dimensions which helps to place the calculation of the vacuum wave function and the string tension in the context of a systematic expansion scheme. The…
We review some recent results on the calculation of renormalization constants in Yang-Mills theory using open bosonic strings. The technology of string amplitudes, supplemented with an appropriate continuation off the mass shell, can be…
We compute the one-loop string corrections to the Wilson loop, glueball Regge trajectory and stringy hadron masses in the Witten model of non supersymmetric, large-N Yang-Mills theory. The classical string configurations corresponding to…
We describe a class of six-dimensional conformal field theories that have some properties in common with and possibly are related to a subsector of the tensionless string theories. The latter theories can for example give rise to…
The Seiberg-Witten limit of fermionic N=2 string theory with nonvanishing B-field is governed by noncommutative self-dual Yang-Mills theory (ncSDYM) in 2+2 dimensions. Conversely, the self-duality equations are contained in the equation of…
This paper studies in great detail a family of supersymmetric Wilson loop operators in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory we have recently found. For a generic curve on an S^3 in space-time the loops preserve two supercharges but we will…
These lectures give an introduction to the novel duality relating type IIB string theory in a maximally supersymmetric plane-wave background to N=4, d=4, U(N) Super Yang-Mills theory in a particular large N and large R-charge limit due to…