Holographic view of causality and locality via branes in AdS/CFT correspondence

Abstract

We study dynamical aspects of the holographic correspondence between d=5 anti-de Sitter supergravity and d=4 super Yang–Mills theory. We probe causality and locality of ambient space-time from super Yang–Mills theory by studying transmission of low-energy brane waves via an open string stretched between two D3-branes in the Coulomb branch. By analyzing two relevant physical threshold scales, we find that causality and locality is encoded in the super Yang–Mills theory in terms of an infinite tower of long supermultiplet operators. The massive W-boson and dual magnetic monopole behave more properly as extended, bilocal objects. We also study the causal time-delay of a low-energy excitation on a heavy quark or meson and find excellent agreement between the anti-de Sitter supergravity and super Yang–Mills theory descriptions. We observe that the strong 't Hooft coupling dynamics and the holographic scale-size relation thereof play a crucial role to the agreement of dynamical processes.