Holographic S-fold theories at one loop

Abstract

A common feature of tree-level holography is that a correlator in one theory can serve as a generating function for correlators in another theory with less continuous symmetry. This is the case for a family of 4d CFTs with eight supercharges which have protected operators dual to gluons in the bulk. The most recent additions to this family were defined using S-folds which combine a spatial identification with an action of the S-duality group in type IIB string theory. Differences between these CFTs which have a dynamical origin first become manifest at one loop. To explore this phenomenon at the level of anomalous dimensions, we use the AdS unitarity method to bootstrap a one-loop double discontinuity. Compared to previous studies, the subsequent analysis is performed without any assumption about which special functions are allowed. Instead, the Casimir singular and Casimir regular terms are extracted iteratively in order to move from one Regge trajectory to the next. Our results show that anomalous dimensions in the presence of an S-fold are no longer rational functions of the spin.