Wilson loops in exact holographic RG flows at zero and finite temperature

Abstract

We study rectangular timelike Wilson loops at long distances in the exact renormalization group flow in the context of the holographic duality. We consider the 5d holographic model with an exponential dilaton potential constructed in [arXiv:1803.06764]. To probe the RG flow backgrounds at zero and finite temperatures we calculate the minimal surfaces of the corresponding string worldsheets. We show that a holographic RG flow at $T=0$, that mimics QCD behaviour of the running coupling, has a confining phase at long distances, while the RG flow with an AdS UV fixed point is non-confining.