Unmixing supergravity

Abstract

We examine the double-trace spectrum of N= 4 super Yang-Mills theory in the supergravity limit. At large N double-trace operators exhibit degeneracy. By considering free-field and tree-level supergravity contributions to four-point functions of half-BPS operators we resolve the degeneracy for a large family of double-trace operators. The mixing problem reveals a surprisingly simple structure which allows us to obtain their three-point functions at leading order in the large N expansion as well as their leading anomalous dimensions.