Tadakatsu Sakai

More on a Holographic Dual of QCD

We investigate the interactions among the pion, vector mesons and external gauge fields in the holographic dual of massless QCD proposed in a previous paper [T. Sakai and S. Sugi-moto, Prog. Theor. Phys. 113 (2005), 843; hep-th/0412141] on the basis of probe D8-branes embedded in a D4-brane background in type IIA string theory. We obtain the coupling constants by performing both analytic and numerical calculations, and compare them with experimental data. It is found that the vector meson dominance in the pion form factor as well as in the Wess-Zumino-Witten term holds in an intriguing manner. We also study the ω → πγ and ω → 3π decay amplitudes. It is shown that the interactions relevant to these decay amplitudes have the same structure as that proposed by Fujiwara et al. [T. Fujiwara, T. Kugo, H. Terao, S. Uehara and K. Yamawaki, Prog. Theor. Phys. 73 (1985), 926]. Various relations among the masses and the coupling constants of an infinite tower of mesons are derived. These relations play crucial roles in the analysis. We find that most of the results are consistent with experiments.

Baryons from Instantons in Holographic QCD

We consider aspects of dynamical baryons in a holographic dual of QCD that is formulated on the basis of a D4/D8-brane configuration. We construct a soliton solution carrying a unit baryon number and show that it is obtained as an instanton solution of four-dimensional Yang-Mills theory with fixed size. The Chern-Simons term on the flavor D8-branes plays a crucial role of protecting the instanton from collapsing to zero size. By quantizing the collective coordinates of the soliton, we derive the baryon spectra. Negative-parity baryons as well as baryons with higher spins and isospins can be obtained in a simple manner.

Probing flavored mesons of confining gauge theories by supergravity

We incorporate massive flavored fundamental quarks in the supergravity dual of = 1 SYM by introducing D7 brane probes to the Klebanov Strassler background. We find probe configurations that solve the D7 equations of motion. We compute the quadratic fluctuations of the D7 brane and extract the spectrum of vector and pseudo scalar flavored mesons. The spectra found are discrete and exhibit a mass gap of the order of the glueball mass.

Holographic Baryons: Static Properties and Form Factors from Gauge/String Duality

In this paper, we study properties of baryons by using a holographic dual of QCD on the basis of the D4/D8-brane configuration, where baryons are described by a soliton. We first determine the asymptotic behavior of the soliton solution, which allows us to evaluate well-defined currents associated with the U(N_f)_L \times U(N_f)_R chiral symmetry. Using the currents, we compute static quantities of baryons such as charge radii and magnetic moments, and make a quantitative test with experiments. It is emphasized that not only the nucleon but also excited baryons, such as \Delta, N(1440), N(1535) etc., can be analyzed systematically in this model. We also investigate the form factors and find that our form factors agree well with the results that are well-established empirically. With the form factors, the effective baryon-baryon-meson cubic coupling constants among their infinite towers in the model can be determined. Some physical implications following from these results are discussed.

Nuclear Force from String Theory

We compute nuclear force in a holographic model of QCD on the basis of a D4-D8 brane configuration in type IIA string theory. Repulsive core of nucleons is quite important in nuclear physics, but its origin has not been well-understood in strongly-coupled QCD. We find that string theory via gauge/string duality deduces this repulsive core at short distance between nucleons. Since baryons in the model are realized as solitons given by Yang-Mills instanton configuration on flavor D8-branes, ADHM construction of two instantons probes well the nucleon interaction at short scale, which provides the nuclear force quantitatively. We obtain, as well as a tensor force, a central force which is strongly repulsive as suggested in experiments and lattice results. In particular, the nucleon-nucleon potential V(r) (as a function of the distance) scales as 1/r^2, which is peculiar to the holographic model. We compare our results with one-boson exchange model using the nucleon-nucleon-meson coupling obtained in our previous paper (arXiv:0806.3122).

Holographic Renormalization Group

The holographic renormalization group (RG) is reviewed in a self-contained manner. The holographic RG is based on the idea that the radial coordinate of a space-time with asymptotically AdS geometry can be identified withthe RG flow parameter of boundary field theory. After briefly discussing basic aspects of the AdS/CFT correspondence, we explain how the concept of the holographic RG emerges from this correspondence. We formulate the holographic RG on the basis of the Hamilton-Jacobi equations for bulk systems of gravity and scalar fields, as introduced by de Boer, Verlinde and Verlinde. We then show that the equations can be solved with a derivative expansion by carefully extracting local counterterms from the generating functional of the boundary field theory. The calculational methods used to obtain the Weyl anomaly and scaling dimensions are presented and applied to the RG flow from the N = 4 SYM to an N = 1 superconformal fixed point discovered by Leigh and Strassler. We further discuss the relation between the holographic RG and the noncritical string theory arid show that the structure of the holographic RG should persist beyond the supergravity approximation as a consequence of the renormalizability of the nonlinear σ-model action of noncritical strings As a check, we investigate the holographic RG structure of higher-derivative gravity systems. We show that such systems can also be analyzed based on the Hamilton-Jacobi equations and that the behavior of bulk fields are determined solely by their boundary values. We also point out that higher-derivative gravity systems give rise to new multicritical points in the parameter space of boundary field theories.

Mass spectra of supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories in 1+1 dimensions

Physical mass spectra of supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories in 1+1 dimensions are evaluated in the light-cone gauge with a compact spatial dimension. The supercharges are constructed and the infrared regularization is unambiguously prescribed for supercharges, instead of the light-cone Hamiltonian. This provides a manifestly supersymmetric infrared regularization for the discretized light-cone approach. By an exact diagonalization of the supercharge matrix between up to several hundred color singlet bound states, we find a rapidly increasing density of states as the mass increases.

Topological B-model, matrix models, hat c = 1 strings and quiver gauge theories

We study topological and integrable aspects of = 1 strings. We consider the circle line theories 0A and 0B at particular radii, and the super affine theories at their self-dual radii. We construct their ground rings, identify them with certain quotients of the conifold, and suggest topological B-model descriptions. We consider the partition functions, correlators and Ward identities, and construct a Kontsevich-like matrix model. We then study all these aspects via the topological B-model description. Finally, we analyse the corresponding Dijkgraaf-Vafa type matrix models and quiver gauge theories.

A Note on the Weyl Anomaly in the Holographic Renormalization Group

We give a prescription for calculating the holographic Weyl anomaly in arbitrary dimension within the framework based on the Hamilton-Jacobi equation proposed by de Boer, Verlinde and Verlinde. A few sample calculations are made and shown to reproduce the results that are obtained to this time with a different method. We further discuss continuum limits, and argue that the holographic renormalization group may describe the renormalized trajectory in the parameter space. We also clarify the relationship of the present formalism to the analysis carried out by Henningson and Skenderis.

Higher-Derivative Gravity and the AdS/CFT Correspondence

We investigate the AdS/CFT correspondence for higher-derivative gravity systems, and develop a formalism in which the generating functional of the boundary field theory is given as a functional that depends only on the boundary values of bulk fields. We also derive a Hamilton-Jacobi-like equation that uniquely determines the generating functional, and give an algorithm calculating the Weyl anomaly. Using the expected duality between a higher-derivative gravity system and N=2 superconformal field theory in four dimensions, we demonstrate that the resulting Weyl anomaly is consistent with the field theoretic one.