BPS Wilson loops in Minkowski spacetime and Euclidean space

Abstract

We give evidence that spacelike BPS Wilson loops do not exist in Minkowski spacetime. We show that spacelike Wilson loops in Minkowski spacetime cannot preserve any supersymmetries, in $$d = 4$$ $$\mathcal N = 4$$ super Yang–Mills theory, $$d = 3$$ $$\mathcal N = 2$$ super Chern–Simons-matter theory, and $$d = 3$$ $$\mathcal N = 6$$ Aharony–Bergman–Jafferis–Maldacena theory. We not only show this using infinite straight lines and circles as examples, but also we give proofs for general curves. We attribute this to the conflicts of the reality conditions of the spinors. However, spacelike Wilson loops do exist in Euclidean space. There are both BPS Wilson loops along infinite straight lines and circular BPS Wilson loops. This is because the reality conditions of the spinors are lost after Wick rotation. The result is reasonable in view of the AdS/CFT correspondence.