Four-point correlators with BPS bound states in AdS$_3$ and AdS$_5$

Abstract

We consider heavy-heavy-light-light (HHLL) correlators in AdS/CFT, focussing on the D1D5 CFT$_2$ and the ${\cal N}= 4$ super Yang-Mills theory. Out of the lightest $1/2$-BPS operator in the spectrum, $O$, we construct a particular heavy operator $O_H$ given by a coherent superposition of multi-particle operators $O^n$, and study the HHLL correlator. When $n$ is of order of the central charge, we show that the bulk equation that computes our boundary HHLL correlators is always a Heun equation. By assuming that the form of the correlator can be continued to the regime where $n$ is ${\mathcal O}(1)$, we first reproduce the known single-particle four-point correlators for $n=1$ and then predict new results for the multi-particle correlators $\langle O^n O^n O O\rangle$. Explicit expressions can be written entirely in terms of $n$-loop ladder integrals and their derivatives, and we provide them for $n=2$ and $n=3$ both in position and in Mellin space. Focussing on the AdS$_5$ case, we study the OPE expansion of these multi-particle correlators and show that several consistency relations with known CFT data are non-trivially satisfied. Finally, we extract new CFT data for double and triple-particle long operators.