On the conformal anomaly from higher derivative gravity in AdS/CFT correspondence

Abstract

We follow to Witten proposal in the calculation of conformal anomaly from d+1-dimensional higher derivative gravity via AdS/CFT correspondence. It is assumed that some d-dimensional conformal field theories have a description in terms of above d+1-dimensional higher derivative gravity which includes not only Einstein term and cosmological constant but also curvature squared terms. The explicit expression for two-dimensional and four-dimensional anomalies is found, it contains higher derivative corrections. In particular, it is shown that not only Einstein gravity but also theory with the Lagrangian $L=aR^2+bR_{μν}R^{μν} + Λ$ (even when a=0 or b=0) is five-dimensional bulk theory for d=4 ${\cal N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory in AdS/CFT correspondence. Similar d+1=3 theory with (or without) Einstein term may describe d=2 scalar or spinor CFTs. That gives new versions of bulk side which may be useful in different aspects. As application of our general formalism we find next-to-leading corrections to the conformal anomaly of ${\cal N}=2$ supersymmetric theory from d=5 AdS higher derivative gravity (low energy string effective action).