Quantized strings and instantons in holography

Abstract

Abstract We study worldsheet instantons in holographic type IIA backgrounds directly in string theory. The first background is a dimensional reduction of AdS7 × S4 and is dual to the maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on S5. The second background is AdS4 × CP3 dual to ABJM in the type IIA limit. We compute the one-loop partition function of the fundamental string in these backgrounds and show that the result is in exact agreement with field theory predictions. We argue that for higher rank instantons, the string partition function takes a product form of the single instanton partition function times the contribution of two orbifolds on the worldsheet. We determine the orbifold factor to be n−3/2 where n is the instanton rank. With this result, we reproduce the series of non-perturbative corrections in α′ to the planar S5 free energy. When studying the worldsheet instanton partition function on CP3, we encounter twelve fermionic and twelve bosonic zero modes. By deforming the ABJM theory, the zero-modes are lifted and consequently the tower of worldsheet instantons can be evaluated and matched to known results in the QFT. As a by-product, we determine a series of higher rank instanton corrections to the free energy of the mass-deformed and orbifolded ABJ(M) theory.