The Gauge/String Correspondence Towards Realistic Gauge Theories

Abstract

This report presents some studies of the gauge/string theory correspondence, a deep relation that is possible to establish between quantum field theories with local gauge symmetry and superstring theories including gravity. In its original version, known as AdS/CFT duality, the correspondence involves N=4 Super Yang-Mills theory in four space-time dimensions, which is a superconformal theory with a high degree of supersymmetry, thus very far from describing the physical world. We explore extensions of the correspondence towards less supersymmetric and non-conformal gauge theories. Specifically, we study gauge theories in three and four dimensions, with eight or four preserved supersymmetries and exhibiting a scale anomaly, by means of supergravity solutions describing D-brane configurations of type II string theory. We show how relevant information on these gauge theories can be extracted from the dual classical solutions, both at the perturbative (e.g. running coupling constant, chiral anomaly) and non-perturbative level (e.g. effective superpotential).