Form Factors in AdS from the Worldsheet

Abstract

We study AdS form factors describing closed strings scattering off D-branes. Assuming that these form factors admit worldsheet integral representations in terms of multiple polylogarithms, we determine their leading curvature corrections around the flat-space limit by matching their pole structure to CFT data. We focus on two examples of defects in 4d $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM: a $\frac{1}{2}$-BPS 't Hooft loop, dual to a D1 brane, and a pair of giant gravitons, dual to a D3 brane. For the 't Hooft loop, the worldsheet bootstrap completely fixes the form factor, and the result passes nontrivial checks from supersymmetric localization. For the giant gravitons, the bootstrap initially leaves five free coefficients, one of which can be fixed using localization. Remarkably, imposing instead that no new operators appear in the defect channel at this order fixes all five coefficients and reproduces the localization constraint. Under this additional assumption, we therefore obtain a unique D3-brane form factor, with supersymmetric localization providing an independent check.