On the effective theory of long open strings

Ofer Aharony, Matan Field

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We study the general low-energy effective action on long open strings, such as confining strings in pure gauge theories. Using Lorentz invariance, we find that for a string of length R, the leading deviation from the Nambu-Goto energy levels generically occurs at order 1/R4 (including a correction to the ground state energy), as opposed to 1/R5 for excited closed strings in four dimensions, and 1/R7 for closed strings in three dimensions. This is true both for Dirichlet and for Neumann boundary conditions for the transverse directions, though the worldsheet boundary actions are different. The Dirichlet case is relevant (for instance) for the force between external quarks in a confining gauge theory, and the Neumann case for a string stretched between domain walls. In the specific case of confining gauge theories with a weakly curved holographic dual, we compute the coefficient of the leading correction when the open string ends on two D-branes, and find a non-vanishing result.

Original languageEnglish
Article number65
JournalJournal of High Energy Physics
Volume2011
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2011

Keywords

  • Confinement
  • Gauge-gravity correspondence
  • Long strings
  • Space-time symmetries

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics

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