A maximally supersymmetric Kondo model

Understand

We study the maximally supersymmetric Kondo model obtained by adding a fermionic impurity to N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory.

• While the original Kondo problem describes a defect interacting with a free Fermi liquid of itinerant electrons, here the ambient theory is an interacting CFT, and this introduces qualitatively new features into the system.
• The model arises in string theory by considering the intersection of a stack of M D5-branes with a stack of N D3-branes, at a point in the D3 worldvolume.
• We analyze the theory holographically, and propose a dictionary between the Kondo problem and antisymmetric Wilson loops in N=4 SYM.