Light-front holographic QCD and emerging confinement

Light-front holography is a remarkable feature of the AdS/CFT correspondence between gravity in AdS space and conformal field theories in physical space-time; it allows string modes $\ensuremath{\Phi}(z)$ in the anti-de Sitter (AdS) fifth dimension to be precisely mapped to the light-front wave functions of hadrons in physical space-time in terms of a specific light-front impact variable $\ensuremath{\zeta}$ which measures the separation of the quark and gluonic constituents within the hadron. This mapping was originally obtained by matching the exact expression for electromagnetic current matrix elements in AdS space with the corresponding exact expression for the current matrix element using light-front theory in physical space-time. In this paper we show that one obtains the identical holographic mapping using matrix elements of the energy-momentum tensor. To prove this, we show that there exists a correspondence between the matrix elements of the energy-momentum tensor of the fundamental hadronic constituents in QCD with the transition amplitudes describing the interaction of string modes in AdS space with an external graviton field which propagates in the AdS interior. The agreement of the results for electromagnetic and gravitational hadronic transition amplitudes provides an important consistency test and verification of holographic mapping from AdS to physical observables defined on the light front.

We show that (a) the conformal properties of Anti-de Sitter (AdS) space, (b) the properties of a field theory in one dimension under the full conformal group found by de Alfaro, Fubini and Furlan, and (c) the frame-independent single-variable light-front Schr\"odinger equation for bound states all lead to the same result: a relativistic nonperturbative model which successfully incorporates salient features of hadronic physics, including confinement, linear Regge trajectories, and results which are conventionally attributed to spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking.

Light-front holography leads to a rigorous connection between hadronic amplitudes in a higher dimensional anti-de Sitter (AdS) space and frame-independent light-front wavefunctions of hadrons in (3 + 1)-dimensional physical space-time, thus providing a compelling physical interpretation of the AdS/CFT correspondence principle and AdS/QCD, a useful framework which describes the correspondence between theories in a modified AdS5 background and confining field theories in physical space-time. To a first semiclassical approximation, where quantum loops and quark masses are not included, this approach leads to a single-variable light-front Schrödinger equation which determines the eigenspectrum and the light-front wavefunctions of hadrons for general spin and orbital angular momentum. The coordinate z in AdS space is uniquely identified with a Lorentz-invariant coordinate ζ which measures the separation of the constituents within a hadron at equal light-front time. The internal structure of hadrons is explicitly introduced and the angular momentum of the constituents plays a key role. We give an overview of the light-front holographic approach to strongly coupled QCD. In particular, we study the photon-to-meson transition form factors (TFFs) FMγ(Q2) for γ* → M using light-front holographic methods. The results for the TFFs for the η and η′ mesons are also presented. Some novel features of QCD are discussed, including the consequences of confinement for quark and gluon condensates. A method for computing the hadronization of quark and gluon jets at the amplitude level is outlined.

Light-front holography is one of the most remarkable features of the AdS/CFT correspondence. In spite of its present limitations, it provides important physical insights into the non-perturbative regime of QCD and its transition to the perturbative domain. This novel framework allows hadronic amplitudes in a higher dimensional anti-de Sitter (AdS) space to be mapped to frame-independent light-front wavefunctions of hadrons in physical space–time. The model leads to an effective confining light-front QCD Hamiltonian and a single-variable light-front Schrödinger equation which determines the eigenspectrum and the light-front wavefunctions of hadrons for general spin and orbital angular momentum. The coordinate z in AdS space is uniquely identified with a Lorentz-invariant coordinate ζ which measures the separation of the constituents within a hadron at equal light-front time and determines the off-shell dynamics of the bound-state wavefunctions, and thus the fall-off as a function of the invariant mass of the constituents. The soft-wall holographic model modified by a positive-sign dilaton metric, leads to a remarkable one-parameter description of nonperturbative hadron dynamics—a semi-classical frame-independent first approximation to the spectra and light-front wavefunctions of meson and baryons. The model predicts a Regge spectrum of linear trajectories with the same slope in the leading orbital angular momentum L of hadrons and the radial quantum number n. The hadron eigensolutions projected on the free Fock basis provides the complete set of valence and non-valence light-front Fock state wavefunctions \({\Psi_{n/H}(x_i, {\mathbf{k}_{\perp{i}}}, \lambda_i)}\) which describe the hadron’s momentum and spin distributions needed to compute the direct measures of hadron structure at the quark and gluon level, such as elastic and transition form factors, distribution amplitudes, structure functions, generalized parton distributions and transverse momentum distributions. The effective confining potential also creates quark–antiquark pairs from the amplitude \({q \to {q}\bar{q}{q}}\) . Thus in holographic QCD higher Fock states can have any number of extra \({q{\bar{q}}}\) pairs. We discuss the relevance of higher Fock-states for describing the detailed structure of space and time-like form factors. The AdS/QCD model can be systematically improved by using its complete orthonormal solutions to diagonalize the full QCD light-front Hamiltonian or by applying the Lippmann–Schwinger method in order to systematically include the QCD interaction terms. A new perspective on quark and gluon condensates is also obtained.

We advance in constructing a bottom-up holographic theory of linear meson Regge trajectories that generalizes and unites into one logical framework various bottom-up holographic approaches proposed in the past and scattered in the literature. The starting point of the theory is a quadratic in fields holographic five-dimensional action in which the Poincaré invariance along the holographic coordinate is violated in the most general way compatible with the linear Regge behavior of the discrete spectrum in four dimensions. It is further demonstrated how different Soft Wall (SW) like holographic models existing in the literature plus some new ones emerge from our general setup. Various interrelations between the emerging models are studied. These models include the known SW models with different sign in the exponential background, the SW models with certain generalized backgrounds, with modified metrics, and No Wall models with 5D mass depending on the holographic coordinate in a simple polynomial way. We argue that this dependence allows to describe the effects caused by the main non-local phenomena of strongly coupled 4D gauge theory, the confinement and chiral symmetry breaking, in terms of a local 5D dual field theory in the AdS space. We provide a detailed comparison of our approach with the Light Front holographic QCD, with the spectroscopic predictions of the dual Veneziano like amplitudes, and with the experimental Regge phenomenology. We apply our general approach to a holographic study of confinement, chiral symmetry breaking, and the pion form factor.

Light-Front Holographic QCD and the Confinement Potential

Through the embedding of superconformal quantum mechanics into AdS space, it is possible to construct an effective supersymmetric QCD light-front Hamiltonian for hadrons, which includes a spin-spin interaction between the hadronic constituents. A specific breaking of conformal symmetry determines a unique effective quark-confining potential for light hadrons, as well as remarkable connections between the meson, baryon, and tetraquark spectra. The pion is massless in the chiral limit and has no supersymmetric partner. The excitation spectra of relativistic light-quark meson, baryon and tetraquark bound states lie on linear Regge trajectories with identical slopes in the radial and orbital quantum numbers. Although conformal symmetry is strongly broken by the heavy quark mass, the basic underlying supersymmetric mechanism, which transforms mesons to baryons (and baryons to tetraquarks) into each other, still holds and gives remarkable connections across the entire spectrum of light, heavy-light and double-heavy hadrons. Here we show that all the observed hadrons can be related through this effective supersymmetric QCD, and that it can be used to identify the structure of the new charmonium states.

A remarkable holographic feature of dynamics in AdS space in five dimensions is that it is dual to Hamiltonian theory in physical space-time, quantized at fixed light-front time τ = t + z/c. This light-front holographic principle provides a precise relation between the bound-state amplitudes in AdS space and the boost-invariant light-front wavefunctions describing the internal structure of hadrons in physical space-time. The fifth dimension coordinate z is dual to the light front variable ζ describing the invariant separation of the quark constituents. The resulting valence Fock-state wavefunction eigensolutions of the light-front QCD Hamiltonian satisfy a single-variable relativistic equation of motion, analogous to the nonrelativistic radial Schrodinger equation. The softwall dilaton profile eκ 2z2 provides a model for the light-front potential which is color-confining and reproduces well the linear Regge behavior of the light-quark hadron spectrum in both L the orbital angular momentum and n the radial node number. The pion mass vanishes in the chiral limit and other features of chiral symmetry are satisfied. The resulting running QCD coupling displays an infrared fixed point. The elastic and transition form factors of the pion and the nucleons are also found to be well described in this framework. The light-front AdS/QCD holographic approach thus gives a frame-independent analytic first approximation of the color-confining dynamics, spectroscopy, and excitation spectra of relativistic light-quark bound states in QCD.

We give an overview of the light front holographic approach to strongly coupled QCD, whereby a confining gauge theory quantized on the light front is mapped to a higher-dimensional anti de Sitter (AdS) space incorporating the AdS/CFT correspondence as a useful guide. One can start from the Hamiltonian equation of motion in physical space time by studying the off-shell dynamics of the bound state wavefunctions as a function of the invariant mass of the constituents. To a first semiclassical approximation, where quantum loops and quark masses are not included, this leads to a light-front Hamiltonian equation which describes the bound state dynamics of light hadrons in terms of an invariant impact variable ζ, which measures the separation of the partons within the hadron at equal light-front time. Alternatively, one can start from the gravity side by studying the propagation of hadronic modes in a fixed effective gravitational background which encodes salient properties of the QCD dual theory, such as the ultraviolet conformal limit at the AdS boundary at z → 0, as well as modifications of the background geometry in the large z infrared region to describe confinement. In the semiclassical approximation both approaches are equivalent. This allows us to identify the holographic variable z in AdS space with the impact variable ζ. Light-front holography also allows a precise mapping of transition amplitudes from AdS to physical space-time. In contrast with the usual AdS/QCD framework, in light front holography the internal structure of hadrons is explicitly introduced and the angular momentum of the constituents plays a key role.

We extend our analysis of the implications of hadronic supersymmetry for heavy-light hadrons in light-front holographic QCD. Although conformal symmetry is strongly broken by the heavy quark mass, supersymmetry and the holographic embedding of semiclassical light-front dynamics derived from five-dimensional anti-de Sitter (AdS) space nevertheless determines the form of the confining potential in the light-front Hamiltonian to be harmonic. The resulting light-front bound-state equations lead to a heavy-light Regge-like spectrum for both mesons and baryons. The confinement hadron mass scale and their Regge slopes depend, however, on the mass of the heavy quark in the meson or baryon as expected from Heavy Quark Effective Theory (HQET). This procedure reproduces the observed spectra of heavy-light hadrons with good precision and makes predictions for yet unobserved states.

A complementary approach, derived from (a) higher-dimensional anti-de Sitter (AdS) space, (b) light-front quantization and (c) the invariance properties of the full conformal group in one dimension leads to a nonperturbative relativistic light-front wave equation which incorporates essential spectroscopic and dynamical features of hadron physics. The fundamental conformal symmetry of the classical QCD Lagrangian in the limit of massless quarks is encoded in the resulting effective theory. The mass scale for confinement emerges from the isomorphism between the conformal group and SO(2,1). This scale appears in the light-front Hamiltonian by mapping to the evolution operator in the formalism of de Alfaro, Fubini and Furlan, which retains the conformal invariance of the action. Remarkably, the specific form of the confinement interaction and the corresponding modification of AdS space are uniquely determined in this procedure.

The combination of Anti-de Sitter space (AdS) methods with light-front (LF) holography provides a remarkably accurate first approximation for the spectra and wavefunctions of meson and baryon light-quark bound states. The resulting bound-state Hamiltonian equation of motion in QCD leads to relativistic light-front wave equations in terms of an invariant impact variable ζ which measures the separation of the quark and gluonic constituents within the hadron at equal light-front time. These equations of motion in physical space-time are equivalent to the equations of motion which describe the propagation of spin-J modes in anti–de Sitter (AdS) space. The eigenvalues give the hadronic spectrum, and the eigenmodes represent the probability distributions of the hadronic constituents at a given scale. A positive-sign confining dilaton background modifying AdS space gives a very good account of meson and baryon spectroscopy and form factors. The light-front holographic mapping of this model also leads to a non-perturbative effective coupling which agrees with the effective charge defined by the Bjorken sum rule and lattice simulations. It displays a transition from perturbative to nonperturbative conformal regimes at a momentum scale ~ 1 GeV. The resulting β-function appears to capture the essential characteristics of the full β-function of QCD, thus giving further support to the application of the gauge/gravity duality to the confining dynamics of strongly coupled QCD.

The combination of Anti-de Sitter space (AdS) methods with light-front holography leads to a semi-classical first approximation to the spectrum and wavefunctions of meson and baryon light-quark bound states. Starting from the bound-state Hamiltonian equation of motion in QCD, we derive relativistic light-front wave equations in terms of an invariant impact variable ζ which measures the separation of the quark and gluonic constituents within the hadron at equal light-front time. These equations of motion in physical space-time are equivalent to the equations of motion which describe the propagation of spin-J modes in anti–de Sitter (AdS) space. Its eigenvalues give the hadronic spectrum, and its eigenmodes represent the probability distributions of the hadronic constituents at a given scale. Applications to the light meson and baryon spectra are presented. The predicted meson spectrum has a string-theory Regge form M2 = 4κ2(n + L + S/2); i.e., the square of the eigenmass is linear in both L and n, where n counts the number of nodes of the wavefunction in the radial variable ζ. The space-like pion and nucleon form factors are also well reproduced. One thus obtains a remarkable connection between the description of hadronic modes in AdS space and the Hamiltonian formulation of QCD in physical space-time quantized on the light-front at fixed light-front time τ. The model can be systematically improved by using its complete orthonormal solutions to diagonalize the full QCD light-front Hamiltonian or by applying the Lippmann–Schwinger method in order to systematically include the QCD interaction terms.

The combination of Anti-de Sitter space (AdS) methods with light-front (LF) holography provides a remarkably accurate first approximation for the spectra and wavefunctions of meson and baryon light-quark bound states. The resulting bound-state Hamiltonian equation of motion in QCD leads to relativistic light-front wave equations in terms of an invariant impact variable ζ which measures the separation of the quark and gluonic constituents within the hadron at equal light-front time. These equations of motion in physical space-time are equivalent to the equations of motion which describe the propagation of spin-J modes in anti–de Sitter (AdS) space. The eigenvalues give the hadronic spectrum, and the eigenmodes represent the probability distributions of the hadronic constituents at a given scale. A positive-sign confining dilaton background modifying AdS space gives a very good account of meson and baryon spectroscopy and form factors. The light-front holographic mapping of this model also leads to a non-perturbative effective coupling [Formula: see text] which agrees with the effective charge defined by the Bjorken sum rule and lattice simulations. It displays a transition from perturbative to nonperturbative conformal regimes at a momentum scale ~ 1 GeV. The resulting β-function appears to capture the essential characteristics of the full β-function of QCD, thus giving further support to the application of the gauge/gravity duality to the confining dynamics of strongly coupled QCD.

Light-front holographic QCD provides a successful first approximation to hadron spectroscopy in the chiral limit of $(3+1)$-dim light-front QCD, where a holographic Schr\"odinger-like equation, with an emerging confining scale, $\kappa$, governs confinement in the transverse direction. In its supersymmetric formulation, light-front holography predicts that each baryon has two superpartners: a meson and a tetraquark, with their degenerate masses being generated by the same scale, $\kappa$. In nature, this mass degeneracy is lifted by chiral symmetry breaking and longitudinal confinement. In this paper, we show that the latter can be successfully captured by the 't Hooft equation of $(1+1)$-dim, large $N_c$, QCD. Together, the holographic Schr\"odinger equation and the 't Hooft equation, provide a good global description of the data across the full hadron spectrum with a universal $\kappa$.