- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Letters

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Giant Graviton Correlators as Defect Systems

Junding Chen (陈俊定)1,2, Yunfeng Jiang (江云峰)3,4,*, and Xinan Zhou (周稀楠)2,4,†

  • *Contact author: jinagyf2008@seu.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: xinan.zhou@ucas.ac.cn
PDF

Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 081602 – Published 22 August, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/hg9p-hblr

Abstract

We consider correlation functions of two maximal giant gravitons and two light 12-BPS (Bogomol’nyi–Prasad–Sommerfield) operators in 4D N=4 SYM (super Yang-Mills). Viewed as two-point correlators in the presence of a zero-dimensional defect, they can be completely fixed at strong coupling using analytic bootstrap techniques. We determine all infinitely such correlators for arbitrary light 12-BPS operators and find that the result can be repackaged into a simple generating function thanks to a hidden higher-dimensional symmetry. We also find evidence that the same symmetry holds at weak coupling for loop correction integrands.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

Supplemental Material

References (67)

  1. S. Gukov and E. Witten, Gauge theory, ramification, and the geometric Langlands program, arXiv:hep-th/0612073.
  2. E. I. Buchbinder, J. Gomis, and F. Passerini, Holographic gauge theories in background fields and surface operators, J. High Energy Phys. 12 (2007) 101.
  3. N. Drukker, J. Gomis, and S. Matsuura, Probing N=4 SYM with surface operators, J. High Energy Phys. 10 (2008) 048.
  4. O. DeWolfe, D. Z. Freedman, and H. Ooguri, Holography and defect conformal field theories, Phys. Rev. D 66, 025009 (2002).
  5. D. Bak, M. Gutperle, and S. Hirano, A dilatonic deformation of AdS(5) and its field theory dual, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2003) 072.
  6. D. Gaiotto and E. Witten, Supersymmetric boundary conditions in N=4 super Yang-Mills theory, J. Stat. Phys. 135, 789 (2009).
  7. Y. Wang, From N=4 super-Yang-Mills on RP4 to bosonic Yang-Mills on RP2, J. High Energy Phys. 03 (2021) 203.
  8. J. Caetano and L. Rastelli, Holography for N=4 on RP4, J. High Energy Phys. 02 (2023) 106.
  9. J. McGreevy, L. Susskind, and N. Toumbas, Invasion of the giant gravitons from Anti-de Sitter space, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2000) 008.
  10. V. Balasubramanian, M. Berkooz, A. Naqvi, and M. J. Strassler, Giant gravitons in conformal field theory, J. High Energy Phys. 04 (2002) 034.
  11. A. Hashimoto, S. Hirano, and N. Itzhaki, Large branes in AdS and their field theory dual, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2000) 051.
  12. X. Zhou, Correlators of N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on real projective space at strong coupling, Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 201602 (2024).
  13. A. Bissi, C. Kristjansen, D. Young, and K. Zoubos, Holographic three-point functions of giant gravitons, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2011) 085.
  14. P. Caputa, R. de Mello Koch, and K. Zoubos, Extremal versus non-extremal correlators with giant gravitons, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2012) 143.
  15. Y. Jiang, S. Komatsu, and E. Vescovi, Structure constants in N=4 SYM at finite coupling as worldsheet g-function, J. High Energy Phys. 07 (2020) 037.
  16. Y. Jiang, S. Komatsu, and E. Vescovi, Exact three-point functions of determinant operators in planar N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 191601 (2019).
  17. A. Holguin and W. W. Weng, Orbit averaging coherent states: Holographic three-point functions of AdS giant gravitons, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2023) 167.
  18. Y. Jiang, Y. Wu, and Y. Zhang, Giant correlators at quantum level, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2024) 345.
  19. A. Brown, F. Galvagno, and C. Wen, Exact results for giant graviton four-point correlators, J. High Energy Phys. 07 (2024) 049.
  20. B. Eden, A. C. Petkou, C. Schubert, and E. Sokatchev, Partial nonrenormalization of the stress tensor four point function in N=4 SYM and AdS/CFT, Nucl. Phys. B607, 191 (2001).
  21. M. Nirschl and H. Osborn, Superconformal Ward identities and their solution, Nucl. Phys. B711, 409 (2005).
  22. M. Billò, V. Gonçalves, E. Lauria, and M. Meineri, Defects in conformal field theory, J. High Energy Phys. 04 (2016) 091.
  23. L. Rastelli and X. Zhou, Mellin amplitudes for AdS5×S5, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 091602 (2017).
  24. L. Rastelli and X. Zhou, How to succeed at holographic correlators without really trying, J. High Energy Phys. 04 (2018) 014.
  25. A. Gimenez-Grau, The Witten diagram bootstrap for holographic defects, arXiv:2306.11896.
  26. J. Chen, A. Gimenez-Grau, and X. Zhou, Defect two-point functions in 6D (2,0) theories, Phys. Rev. D 109, L061903 (2024).
  27. S. Giombi, R. Roiban, and A. A. Tseytlin, Half-BPS Wilson loop and AdS2/CFT1, Nucl. Phys. B922, 499 (2017).
  28. S. R. Das, A. Jevicki, and S. D. Mathur, Vibration modes of giant gravitons, Phys. Rev. D 63, 024013 (2000).

  29. More precisely, an orbit average integrating over the ϕ→ϕ+ϕ0, τ→τ+τ0 moduli is also needed [30].

  30. P. Yang, Y. Jiang, S. Komatsu, and J.-B. Wu, D-branes and orbit average, SciPost Phys. 12, 055 (2022).
  31. Y. Imamura, Finite-N superconformal index via the AdS/CFT correspondence, Prog. Theor. Exp. Phys. 2021, 123B05 (2021).
  32. H. J. Kim, L. J. Romans, and P. van Nieuwenhuizen, The mass spectrum of chiral N=2D=10 supergravity on S**5, Phys. Rev. D 32, 389 (1985).
  33. J. Chen, Y. Jiang, and X. Zhou (to be published).
  34. A. Bissi, A. Sinha, and X. Zhou, Selected topics in analytic conformal bootstrap: A guided journey, Phys. Rep. 991, 1 (2022).
  35. L. Rastelli and X. Zhou, The Mellin formalism for boundary CFTd, J. High Energy Phys. 10 (2017) 146.
  36. See Supplemental Material at http://link.aps.org/supplemental/10.1103/hg9p-hblr for additional technical details which can be read independently and use results from [25,33,35,37].
  37. L. F. Alday and X. Zhou, All holographic four-point functions in all maximally supersymmetric CFTs, Phys. Rev. X 11, 011056 (2021).

  38. This is the superconformal Ward identity of which (2) is the solution.

  39. More rigorously speaking, we should compare the meromorphic twisted correlator after setting α¯=1/z¯ which is coupling independent [40].

  40. C. Beem, M. Lemos, P. Liendo, W. Peelaers, L. Rastelli, and B. C. van Rees, Infinite chiral symmetry in four dimensions, Commun. Math. Phys. 336, 1359 (2015).

  41. More precisely, the results for even p differ by a term which is proportional to the product of two one-point functions. But this is because [15] considered U(N) gauge group instead of SU(N).

  42. S. Caron-Huot and A.-K. Trinh, All tree-level correlators in AdS5×S5 supergravity: Hidden ten-dimensional conformal symmetry, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2019) 196.
  43. S. Caron-Huot and F. Coronado, Ten dimensional symmetry of N=4 SYM correlators, J. High Energy Phys. 03 (2022) 151.

  44. The same was also observed for 4D N=2 SCFTs. An 8D hidden conformal symmetry was first found at strong coupling in [45] and then identified at weak coupling for one-loop corrections in [46].

  45. L. F. Alday, C. Behan, P. Ferrero, and X. Zhou, Gluon scattering in AdS from CFT, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2021) 020.
  46. X.-E. Du, Z. Huang, B. Wang, E. Y. Yuan, and X. Zhou, Meson correlators in 4d N=2 SCFTs and hints for 8d structures at weak coupling, J. High Energy Phys. 04 (2025) 128.
  47. Y. Jiang, C. Liu, Y. Wu, and Y. Zhang (to be published).
  48. G. Chen, R. de Mello Koch, M. Kim, and H. J. R. Van Zyl, Absorption of closed strings by giant gravitons, J. High Energy Phys. 10 (2019) 133.
  49. S. Corley, A. Jevicki, and S. Ramgoolam, Exact correlators of giant gravitons from dual N=4 SYM theory, Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 5, 809 (2002).
  50. S. Corley and S. Ramgoolam, Finite factorization equations and sum rules for BPS correlators in N=4 SYM theory, Nucl. Phys. B641, 131 (2002).
  51. R. Bhattacharyya, R. de Mello Koch, and M. Stephanou, Exact multi-restricted Schur polynomial correlators, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2008) 101.
  52. E. Vescovi, Four-point function of determinant operators in N=4 SYM, Phys. Rev. D 103, 106001 (2021).
  53. O. Shahpo and E. Vescovi, Correlation functions of determinant operators in conformal fishnet theory, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2022) 070.
  54. O. Aharony, L. F. Alday, A. Bissi, and E. Perlmutter, Loops in AdS from conformal field theory, J. High Energy Phys. 07 (2017) 036.
  55. J. Chen, A. Gimenez-Grau, H. Paul, and X. Zhou, Unitarity method for holographic defects, Phys. Rev. D 111, L041703 (2025).
  56. L. F. Alday and X. Zhou, Flat-space limit of defect correlators and stringy AdS form factors, J. High Energy Phys. 03 (2025) 182.
  57. V. Gonçalves, R. Pereira, and X. Zhou, 20′ Five-point function from AdS5×S5 supergravity, J. High Energy Phys. 10 (2019) 247.
  58. L. F. Alday, V. Gonçalves, and X. Zhou, Supersymmetric five-point gluon amplitudes in AdS space, Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 161601 (2022).
  59. V. Gonçalves, C. Meneghelli, R. Pereira, J. Vilas Boas, and X. Zhou, Kaluza-Klein five-point functions from AdS5×S5 supergravity, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2023) 067.
  60. L. F. Alday, V. Gonçalves, M. Nocchi, and X. Zhou, Six-point AdS gluon amplitudes from flat space and factorization, Phys. Rev. Res. 6, L012041 (2024).
  61. Q. Cao, S. He, and Y. Tang, Constructibility of AdS supergluon amplitudes, Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 021605 (2024).
  62. Q. Cao, S. He, X. Li, and Y. Tang, Supergluon scattering in AdS: Constructibility, spinning amplitudes, and new structures, J. High Energy Phys. 10 (2024) 040.
  63. Z. Huang, B. Wang, E. Y. Yuan, and J. Zhang, All five-point Kaluza-Klein correlators and hidden 8d symmetry in AdS5×S3, Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 161601 (2025).
  64. V. Goncalves, M. Nocchi, and X. Zhou, Dissecting supergraviton six-point function with lightcone limits and chiral algebra, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2025) 173.
  65. G. Chen, R. de Mello Koch, M. Kim, and H. J. R. Van Zyl, Structure constants of heavy operators in ABJM and ABJ theory, Phys. Rev. D 100, 086019 (2019).
  66. P. Yang, Y. Jiang, S. Komatsu, and J.-B. Wu, Three-point functions in ABJM and Bethe Ansatz, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2022) 002.
  67. Y.-J. He and Y. Jiang, Exact g-function without strings, arXiv:2412.12869.

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 081602– Published 22 August, 2025
  • Received 3 April 2025
  • Accepted 24 July 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation