Wilson loops in N=4 SYM theory: rotation in S5

Abstract

We study Wilson loops in N=4 SYM theory which are non-constant in the scalar (S5) directions and open string solutions associated with them in the context of AdS/CFT correspondence. An interplay between Minkowskian and Euclidean pictures turns out to be non-trivial for time-dependent Wilson loops. We find that in the S5-rotating case there appears to be no direct open-string duals for the Minkowskian Wilson loops, and their expectation values should be obtained by analytic continuation from the Euclidean-space results. In the Euclidean case, we determine the dependence of the ``quark - anti-quark'' potential on the rotation parameter, both at weak coupling (i.e. in the 1-loop perturbative SYM theory) and at strong coupling (i.e. in the classical string theory in AdS5 x S5).