A Double--Scaling Large--\(d\) Saddle of BFSS/BMN Matrix Quantum Mechanics

Abstract

We study the large--\(d\) dynamics of the mass--deformed bosonic \(\mathrm{BFSS}_{d+1}\) matrix quantum mechanics using a Hubbard--Stratonovich localization of the Yang--Mills interaction. After integrating out the matrix coordinates, the theory reduces to a holonomy--dependent effective action for an auxiliary adjoint kernel. We introduce a commuting--symmetric saddle and its maximally symmetric specialization, in which the interaction is encoded in a single dynamically generated mass shift \(k_0\). The resulting large--\(d\) description is a gauged matrix harmonic oscillator with self--consistent frequency \(s^2=m+k_0\), fixed by a gap equation. We analyze the low--temperature \(X\)-space physics, the holonomy effective action, the Yang--Mills observable, and the associated phase structure. We then identify a correlated double--scaling limit in which \(d\to\infty\), \(m\to\infty\), and \(κ=m^{3/2}/d\) is held fixed. In this limit the Yang--Mills interaction and the explicit mass deformation remain parametrically balanced: the theory interpolates between the commutator--dominated BFSS regime and the mass--dominated Gaussian regime. The double--scaled theory exhibits two complementary large--\(d\) regimes. At low temperature, the enhanced gap pushes the deconfinement scale upward and opens a parametrically large uniform--holonomy region, where the bulk dynamics behaves as weakly coupled \(\mathrm{BFSS}_2\)--type gauged harmonic--oscillator sectors. At the same time, the high--temperature branch reveals an overlap window in which the Gaussian description remains self--consistent while the commutator contribution per matrix pair is parametrically suppressed. The resulting dynamics is therefore \(\mathrm{BFSS}_2\)--like in its enlarged uniform--holonomy sector and IKKT--like in its almost--commuting matrix behavior.