Nordita HEP Local Seminars

Reparametrization path integral in AdS and the holographic Schwinger effect

by Yuri Makeenko (ITEP)

Europe/Stockholm
122:026

122:026

Description
Reparametrization path integral plays the crucial role for constructing stringy representations of the Wilson loop in QCD, describing the minimal surface at the saddle point and its quantum fluctuations in the semiclassical approximation. I consider the reparametrization path integral in anti-de Sitter space (AdS) by extending Douglas' algorithm for finding minimal surfaces to AdS. The case of a circular boundary contour is elaborated. I discuss applications to N=4 super Yang--Mills: a circular Wilson loop and the Schwinger process, where a semiclassical correction to the critical constant electric field is computed. The results are compared with the one-loop effective action of Green-Schwarz superstring in AdS_5 x S^5, which is reconsidered by properly accounting for the ghost and longitudinal determinants.