Causality violation in the holographic approach to N=4 SYM theory at finite 't Hooft coupling
Abstract
In the AdS/CFT correspondence, correlation functions of the energy-momentum tensor in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory at large but finite 't Hooft coupling can be studied using higher-derivative corrections to supergravity. We show that the commonly used holographic prescription for correlation functions which is obtained by truncating the equations of motion at order (α')3 implies that the thermal equilibrium state of N=4 SYM theory in the planar limit is dynamically unstable at arbitrarily large finite 't Hooft coupling. The instability is a reflection of the unphysical causality violation brought about by treating perturbatively-derived equations as if they were non-perturbative, analogous to the instability of AdS black branes in five-dimensional Gauss-Bonnet gravity. While other holographic prescriptions for treating the O(α'3) corrections to supergravity may alleviate the pathology introduced by the truncation, the validity regime of the results obtained by any prescription at O(α'3) must be limited to the strict perturbative treatment of the O(α'3) effects on N=4 SYM observables.
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BibTeX
@misc{buchel2026causality,
title = {{Causality violation in the holographic approach to N=4 SYM theory at finite 't Hooft coupling}},
author = {Alex Buchel and Pavel Kovtun},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.28319},
eprint = {2610.28319},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.28319},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Causality violation in the holographic approach to N=4 SYM theory at finite 't Hooft coupling
AU - Alex Buchel
AU - Pavel Kovtun
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/20
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.28319
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.28319
AB - In the AdS/CFT correspondence, correlation functions of the energy-momentum tensor in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory at large but finite 't Hooft coupling can be studied using higher-derivative corrections to supergravity. We show that the commonly used holographic prescription for correlation functions which is obtained by truncating the equations of motion at order (α')^3 implies that the thermal equilibrium state of N=4 SYM theory in the planar limit is dynamically unstable at arbitrarily large finite 't Hooft coupling. The instability is a reflection of the unphysical causality violation brought about by treating perturbatively-derived equations as if they were non-perturbative, analogous to the instability of AdS black branes in five-dimensional Gauss-Bonnet gravity. While other holographic prescriptions for treating the O(α'^3) corrections to supergravity may alleviate the pathology introduced by the truncation, the validity regime of the results obtained by any prescription at O(α'^3) must be limited to the strict perturbative treatment of the O(α'^3) effects on N=4 SYM observables.
ER -