The 4d/2d correspondence in twistor space and holomorphic Wilson lines

Abstract

We give an explicit realization of the 4d local operator / 2d conformal block correspondence of Costello and Paquette in the case of gauge theories. This is accomplished by lifting the 4d local operators to non-local operators in twistor space using a holomorphic generalization of the Wilson line. This procedure automatically constructs the 2d conformal blocks corresponding to the local operator. We interpret this lifting as effectively integrating out the 2d degrees of freedom living on the defect. We present some 2d chiral CFT representations of the defect algebra whose correlators reproduce the conformal blocks obtained by the lifting procedure.