String worldsheet for accelerating quark

Abstract

We consider the AdS bulk dual to an external massive quark in SYM following an arbitrary trajectory on Minkowski background. While a purely outgoing boundary condition on the gluonic field allows one to express the corresponding string worldsheet in a closed form, the setup has curious consequences. In particular, we argue that any quark whose trajectory on flat spacetime approaches that of a light ray in the remote past (as happens e.g. in the case of uniform acceleration) must necessarily be accompanied by an anti-quark. This is puzzling from the field theory standpoint, since one would expect that a sole quark following any timelike trajectory should be allowed. We explain the resolution in terms of boundary and initial conditions. We analyze the configuration in global AdS, which naturally suggests a modification to the boundary conditions allowing for a single accelerated quark without accompanying anti-quark. We contrast this resolution with earlier proposals.

28 pages, 8 figures; v2: minor clarifications added

References in corpus (6)

• On the exact solution of the accelerating string in $Ad{S}_5$ space
• Nonlinear waves in AdS/CFT correspondence
• Accelerated detectors and worldsheet horizons in AdS/CFT
• Holographic dual of collimated radiation
• Branes from Light: Embeddings and Energetics for Symmetric $k$-Quarks in $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM
• Holographic Accelerated Heavy Quark-Anti-Quark Pair

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Schwinger Effect and Entanglement Entropy in Confining Geometries
• Branes from Light: Embeddings and Energetics for Symmetric $k$-Quarks in $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM
• Conformal Transformations and Strings for an Accelerating Quark-Antiquark Pair in AdS3