Large winding sector of AdS/CFT

Abstract

We study a family of classical strings on × S 3 subspace of the AdS 5 × S 5 background that interpolates between pulsating strings and single-spike strings. They are obtained from the helical strings of hep-th/0609026 by interchanging worldsheet time and space coordinates, which maps rotating/spinning string states with large spins to oscillating states with large winding numbers. From a finite-gap perspective, this transformation is realised as an interchange of quasi-momentum and quasi-energy defined for the algebraic curve. The gauge theory duals are also discussed, and are identified with operators in the non-holomorphic sector of = 4 super Yang-Mills. They can be viewed as excited states above the ''antiferromagnetic'' state, which is ''as far from BPS as possible'' in the spin-chain spectrum. Furthermore, we investigate helical strings on AdS 3 × S 1 in an appendix. © SISSA 2007.