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Searching for strongly coupled AdS matter with multi-trace deformations
by Luis Apolo, Alexandre Belin, Suzanne Bintanja
Submission summary
| Authors (as registered SciPost users): | Suzanne Bintanja |
| Submission information | |
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| Preprint Link: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.15141v4 (pdf) |
| Date accepted: | Nov. 18, 2025 |
| Date submitted: | Oct. 31, 2025, 1:53 a.m. |
| Submitted by: | Suzanne Bintanja |
| Submitted to: | SciPost Physics |
| Ontological classification | |
|---|---|
| Academic field: | Physics |
| Specialties: |
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| Approach: | Theoretical |
Abstract
Holographic CFTs admit a dual emergent description in terms of semiclassical general relativity minimally coupled to matter fields. While the gravitational interactions are required to be suppressed by the Planck scale, the matter sector is allowed to interact strongly at the AdS scale. From the perspective of the dual CFT, this requires breaking large-$N$ factorization in certain sectors of the theory. Exactly marginal multi-trace deformations are capable of achieving this while still preserving a consistent large-$N$ limit. We probe the effect of these deformations on the bulk theory by computing the relevant four-point functions in conformal perturbation theory. We find a simple answer in terms of a finite sum of conformal blocks, indicating that the correlators display no bulk-point singularities. This implies that the matter of the bulk theory is made strongly coupled by boundary terms rather than local bulk interactions. Our results suggest that holographic CFTs that describe strongly coupled AdS matter must be isolated points on the CFT landscape or sit infinitely far away on the conformal manifold from conventional holographic CFTs.
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Author comments upon resubmission
List of changes
Rephrased the paragraph below eq. (1.5) explaining the expectation for the bulk interpretation of the deformed CFT
Replaced infinite distance with distance that diverges with N in footnote 5 and the paragraph “Conformal manifolds and infinite distances” in the discussion section
Added the interpretation of a bulk Witten diagram with cubic vertices whose dual operator dimensions add up to d in terms of an anomaly on page 4 and promoted footnote 15 that addressed the interpretation in the previous version to the main text
Clarified that symmetric product orbifolds are not holographic, but have been argued to be connected to holographic CFTs through marginal deformations that reach a holographic point somewhere on their conformal manifolds in the first paragraph of section 3
Replaced the phrasing of "One possibility" with "Following [20] and related work, we expect that" in the second paragraph of section 4
Rephrased the sentences around eq. (5.1) as an expectation for nature of the bulk theory, and explaining its interpretation as implementing a change in boundary conditions for the bulk fields
Rephrased the final sentence of the paragraph “Conformal manifolds and infinite distances” in the discussion section regarding the addition of branes to obtain strongly coupled matter
Published as SciPost Phys. 19, 139 (2025)
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