Spin Chain for Quantum Strings.pdf

a r X i v : h e p - t h / 0 4 0 9 0 5 4 v 2 1 4 S e p 2 0 0 4 hep-th/0409054 AEI 2004-070 Spin Chain for Quantum Strings Niklas Beisert Max-Planck-Institut fu?r Gravitationsphysik Albert-Einstein-Institut Am Mu?hlenberg 1, 14476 Potsdam, Germany nbeisert@aei.mpg.de Abstract We review and compare the integrable structures in N = 4 gauge theory and string theory on AdS5 ×S5. Recently, Bethe ansa?tze for gauge theory/weak coupling and string theory/strong coupling were proposed to describe scaling dimensions in the su(2) subsector. Here we investigate the Bethe equations for quantum string theory, naively extrapolated to weak coupling. Excit- ingly, we find a spin chain Hamiltonian similar, but not equal, to the gauge theory dilatation operator. 1 Introduction When computing scaling dimensions of local operators in U(N) N = 4 gauge theory one can, for convenience, restrict to a number of subsectors. The smallest, nontrivial one is the su(2) subsector with only two scalar fields Z and φ. A local operator in field theory can now be interpreted as a state of a spin-1 2 su(2) spin chain, e.g. TrZZφZZZφφZ = |↑↑↓↑↑↑↓↓↑〉 (1) In this picture, the planar dilatation operator D, which measures gauge theory scaling dimensions, maps to the spin chain Hamiltonian H D(g) = L+ g2H(g) +O(1/N), g2 = g 2 YM N 8π2 , (2) where L counts the number of spin chain sites. At leading order, g = 0, Minahan and Zarembo have shown that H (alias the one-loop dilatation operator) is the Hamiltonian of the Heisenberg spin chain [1]. This Hamiltonian is integrable, i.e. it is part of a tower of local charges Qr, H = Q2, which commute with the su(2) generators J and with each other (at g = 0) [J,Qr(g)] = 0, [Qr(g),Qs(g)] = 0. (3) In [2] it was subsequently shown that integrability extends to next-to-leading order in g (two-loops) and conjectured that (3) might hold exactly in perturbation theory or even beyond. Based on three basic assumptions [2, 3] (i) integrability, (ii) proper scaling in the th