't Hooft meets Wilson: Disorder operators, matrix models, and S-duality

by Diego Trancanelli (University of California, Santa Barbara)

Tuesday 9 Jun 2009, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Zurich

TH Theory Conference Room (CERN)

We propose a prescription for computing correlation functions of 't Hooft operators at the quantum level. These operators insert a magnetic point-like source in the gauge theory path integral and are an example of "disorder operators", that is, operators defined in terms of certain singular boundary conditions for the fields of the theory. Given this prescription, we are able to compute the expectation value of a circular 't Hooft operator at tree and one loop levels. We then use this result to perform a dynamical test of the S-duality conjecture for N=4 super Yang-Mills. This test is obtained by matching the weak coupling result for the 't Hooft loop with the expectation value of its electric dual, the circular Wilson loop, computed at strong coupling using a matrix model.