Toward precision holography with supersymmetric Wilson loops

Understand

We consider certain 1/4 BPS Wilson loop operators in SU(N) ${\cal N}=4$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, whose expectation value can be computed exactly via supersymmetric localization.

• Holographically, these operators are mapped to fundamental strings in AdS5 x S5.
• The string on-shell action reproduces the large N and large coupling limit of the gauge theory expectation value and, according to the AdS/CFT correspondence, there should also be a precise match between subleading corrections to these limits.
• We perform a test of such match at next-to-leading order in string theory, by deriving the spectrum of quantum fluctuations around the classical string solution and by computing the corresponding 1-loop effective action.