Research Outputs (School of Physics)

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    LLM magnons
    (Springer Verlag, 2016-03) de Mello Koch, R.; Mathwin, C.; Van Zyl, H.J.R.
    We consider excitations of LLM geometries described by coloring the LLM plane with concentric black rings. Certain closed string excitations are localized at the edges of these rings. The string theory predictions for the energies of magnon excitations of these strings depends on the radii of the edges of the rings. In this article we construct the operators dual to these closed string excitations and show how to reproduce the string theory predictions for magnon energies by computing one loop anomalous dimensions. These operators are linear combinations of restricted Schur polynomials. The distinction between what is the background and what is the excitation is accomplished in the choice of the subgroup and the representations used to construct the operator.
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    Anomalous dimensions of heavy operators from magnon energies
    (Springer Verlag, 2016-03) de Mello Koch, R.; Tahiridimbisoa, N.H.; Mathwin, C.
    We study spin chains with boundaries that are dual to open strings suspended between systems of giant gravitons and dual giant gravitons. Motivated by a geometrical interpretation of the central charges of su(2|2), we propose a simple and minimal all loop expression that interpolates between the anomalous dimensions computed in the gauge theory and energies computed in the dual string theory. The discussion makes use of a description in terms of magnons, generalizing results for a single maximal giant graviton. The symmetries of the problem determine the structure of the magnon boundary reflection/scattering matrix up to a phase. We compute a reflection/scattering matrix element at weak coupling and verify that it is consistent with the answer determined by symmetry. We find the reflection/scattering matrix does not satisfy the boundary Yang-Baxter equation so that the boundary condition on the open spin chain spoils integrability. We also explain the interpretation of the double coset ansatz in the magnon language.
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    Interactions as intertwiners in 4D QFT
    (Springer Verlag, 2016-03) de Mello Koch, R.; Ramgoolam, S.
    In a recent paper we showed that the correlators of free scalar field theory in four dimensions can be constructed from a two dimensional topological field theory based on so(4, 2) equivariant maps (intertwiners). The free field result, along with recent results of Frenkel and Libine on equivariance properties of Feynman integrals, are developed further in this paper. We show that the coefficient of the log term in the 1-loop 4-point conformal integral is a projector in the tensor product of so(4, 2) representations. We also show that the 1-loop 4-point integral can be written as a sum of four terms, each associated with the quantum equation of motion for one of the four external legs. The quantum equation of motion is shown to be related to equivariant maps involving indecomposable representations of so(4, 2), a phenomenon which illuminates multiplet recombination. The harmonic expansion method for Feynman integrals is a powerful tool for arriving at these results. The generalization to other interactions and higher loops is discussed.
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    Large mass hierarchies from strongly-coupled dynamics
    (Springer Verlag, 2016-06) Athenodorou, A.; Bennett, E.; Bergner, G.; Elander, D.; Lin, C.-J.D.; Lucini, B.; Piai, M.
    Besides the Higgs particle discovered in 2012, with mass 125 GeV, recent LHC data show tentative signals for new resonances in diboson as well as diphoton searches at high center-of-mass energies (2 TeV and 750 GeV, respectively). If these signals are confirmed (or other new resonances are discovered at the TeV scale), the large hierarchies between masses of new bosons require a dynamical explanation. Motivated by these tentative signals of new physics, we investigate the theoretical possibility that large hierarchies in the masses of glueballs could arise dynamically in new strongly-coupled gauge theories extending the standard model of particle physics. We study lattice data on non-Abelian gauge theories in the (near-)conformal regime as well as a simple toy model in the context of gauge/gravity dualities. We focus our attention on the ratio R between the mass of the lightest spin-2 and spin-0 resonances, that for technical reasons is a particularly convenient and clean observable to study. For models in which (non-perturbative) large anomalous dimensions arise dynamically, we show indications that this mass ratio can be large, with R>5. Moreover,our results suggest that R might be related to universal properties of the IR fixed point. Our findings provide an interesting step towards understanding large mass ratios in the non-perturbative regime of quantum field theories with (near) IR conformal behaviour.
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    Heavy quark diffusion in strongly coupled anisotropic plasmas
    (Springer, 2014-06-09) Giataganasa, Dimitrios; Soltanpanahib, Hesam
    We study the Langevin diffusion of a relativistic heavy quark in anisotropic strongly coupled theories in the local limit. Firstly, we use the axion space-dependent deformed anisotropic N = 4 sYM, where the geometry anisotropy is always prolate, while the pressure anisotropy may be prolate or oblate. For motion along the anisotropic direction we find that the effective temperature for the quark can be larger than the heat bath temperature, in contrast to what happens in the isotropic theory. The longitudinal and transverse Langevin diffusion coefficients depend strongly on the anisotropy, the direction of motion and the transverse direction considered. We analyze the anisotropy effects to the coefficients and compare them to each other and to them of the isotropic theory. To examine the dependence of the coefficients on the type of the geometry, we consider another bottom-up anisotropic model. Changing the geometry from prolate to oblate, certain diffusion coefficients interchange their behaviors. In both anisotropic backgrounds we find cases that the transverse diffusion coefficient is larger than the longitudinal, but we find no negative excess noise.
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    Attractive holographic c -functions
    (Springer, 2014-11-24) Bhattacharyya, Arpan; Haque, S. Shajidul; Jejjala, Vishnu; Nampuri, Suresh; Véliz-Osorio, Álvaro
    Using the attractor mechanism for extremal solutions in N = 2 gauged supergravity, we construct a c-function that interpolates between the central charges of theories at ultraviolet and infrared conformal fixed points corresponding to anti-de Sitter geometries. The c-function we obtain is couched purely in terms of bulk quantities and connects two different dimensional CFTs at the stable conformal fixed points under the RG flow.