Energy-Energy Correlators at Strong Coupling

Abstract

We study energy-energy correlators (EEC) in planar $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory at strong 't Hooft coupling $\hat{I}»$. We consider the EEC in states created by half-BPS operators of arbitrary dimension $p$, and determine the corresponding event-shape function up to order $\hat{I}{»}^{-3/2}$ from the worldsheet representation of the AdS Virasoro-Shapiro amplitude with Kaluza-Klein external states. For $p=2$ we compute the second curvature correction, which completes the EEC through order $\hat{I}{»}^{-2}$; the new contribution improves the agreement with recently derived non-perturbative bounds at intermediate coupling. We further develop a complementary method in which the strong-coupling expansion coefficients of the EEC are extracted directly from the Wilson coefficients of low-energy expansion of the AdS Virasoro-Shapiro amplitude, and find the two approaches in perfect agreement.

28 pages + 4 appendices, 3 figures