Integrable spin chain for stringy Wess-Zumino-Witten models

Abstract

Building on arXiv:1804.01998 we investigate the integrable structure of the Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) model describing closed strings on $AdS_3\times S^3\times T^4$. Using the recently-proposed integrable S matrix we show analytically that all wrapping corrections cancel and that the theory has a natural spin-chain interpretation. We construct the integrable spin chain and discuss its relation with the WZW description. Finally we compute the spin-chain spectrum in closed form and show that it matches the WZW prediction on the nose.