Vector operators in the BMN correspondence

Abstract

We consider a BMN operator with one scalar, phi, and one vector, D_{m}Z, impurity field and compute the anomalous dimension both at planar and torus levels. This "mixed" operator corresponds to a string state with two creation operators which belong to different SO(4) sectors of the background. The anomalous dimension at both levels is found to be the same as the scalar impurity BMN operator. At planar level this constitutes a consistency check of BMN conjecture. Agreement at the torus level can be explained by an argument using supersymmetry and supression in the BMN limit. The same argument implies that a class of fermionic BMN operators also have the same planar and torus level anomalous dimensions. Implications of the results for the map from N=4 SYM theory to string theory in the pp-wave background are discussed.