# Untitled Document

hep-ph/9812208, IASSNS-HEP-98-102

NEW PERSPECTIVES   
IN THE QUEST FOR UNIFICATION 

Edward Witten

School of Natural Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study

Olden Lane, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA

Synthesizing older ideas about the $`1/N`$ expansion in gauge theory, the quantum mechanics of black holes, and quantum field theory in Anti de Sitter space, a new correspondence between gauge theory and quantum gravity has illuminated both subjects.

December, 1998

I will not, obviously, be able in today’s lecture to introduce all of the subjects that will be covered in this school.<sup>1</sup> This talk was presented as the opening lecture at the 1998 School on Subnuclear Physics at Erice. It was based in part on the author’s Klein Lecture at Stockholm University. My somewhat more modest aim will be to explain some of the new advances in the quest for unification of the forces of nature.

But I have decided not to do this in the form of a standard review talk. Instead, I thought I would explain the theoretical development of the past year that seems most exciting to me. This involves new ideas that have combined together three longstanding ingredients, namely:

(1) the $`1/N`$ explansion of gauge theories;

(2) the thermodynamics of black holes;

(3) quantum mechanics in Anti de Sitter spacetime.

I will introduce these in turn and then describe the current synthesis.

The $`1/N`$ Expansion

Some of the most basic problems in four-dimensional quantum gauge theories are still not really understood. These include quark confinement, chiral symmetry breaking, and the mass gap in pure non-abelian gauge theories.

We can exhibit confinement in computer simulations; and we have (as ’t Hooft will explain in a few days) a conceptual understanding of it based on electric-magnetic duality. But we are not able in QCD to exhibit confinement in any controlled pencil and paper computation with well-defined approximations. In short, we just do not have the sort of understanding of confinement that we aim to get for any physical phenomenon. Similar remarks apply for chiral symmetry breaking and the mass gap. As long as this situation persists, there is really no hope of computing hadron masses (and other strong interaction observables like hadron magnetic moments, scattering amplitudes, and the like) except by computer simulation.

For a quarter of a century now , it has seemed that the best hope of understanding the strong coupling aspects of QCD is via a $`1/N`$ expansion. The idea is to replace the $`SU(3)`$ gauge group of strong interactions by $`SU(N)`$ and expand in powers of $`1/N`$. There are reasons to believe that QCD simplifies dramatically for $`N\mathrm{}`$ and that the $`N=\mathrm{}`$ theory is in fact, a free theory of hadrons.

If true, this is of fundamental importance; it means that taking $`N`$ large separates the problem of formation of hadrons via mass generation and quark confinement from the problem of the residual interactions of hadrons. These residual interactions lead to such complicated phenomena (like nuclear physics) that there is no hope at all of ever getting an exact solution of QCD. Likewise, there is no hope of ever understanding QCD in a quantitative and controlled way unless there is some gauge-invariant parameter that can be adjusted to turn off the residual hadronic interactions while preserving the essential mysteries that one wishes to explain. It seems that $`1/N`$ is the parameter that can play this role.

Moreover, there are hints from experiment that the real world is relatively close to a limit in which confinement and the other nonperturbative phenomena are retained but the residual interactions are turned off. For example, mesons, even relatively heavy ones, are comparatively narrow (relative to their masses), suggesting some suppression of the interactions leading to their decay relative to the strong interaction that leads to their existence. This suggests that the $`1/N`$ expansion could be a reasonable quantitative as well as qualitative approach to understanding the real world. This really should not be so surprising; fortune often smiles on approximations that are qualitatively correct, and while $`1/N=1/3`$ is not so very small, it is not much larger that the charge of the electron ($`e=.303`$, with $`e^2/4\pi =1/137`$). Lattice simulations also seem to show that the $`1/N`$ expansion is a good approximation at $`N=3`$, at least in three dimensions and probably also in four . For a review of some of the phenomenological arguments, see ; for more information on the $`1/N`$ expansion, see .

Going back to the early days of speculation about the $`1/N`$ expansion in QCD, there have been reasons to believe that the solution of large $`N`$ QCD has something to do with a kind of string theory. There are at least three such reasons (which all largely go back to ’t Hooft’s original paper): (i) QCD has strings; (ii) the large $`N`$ Feynman diagrams are suggestive of strings; (iii) phenomenology has apparently suggested a string description.

On the first point, QCD has strings, namely the strings or flux tubes responsible for confinement. If one separates a quark from an antiquark, an electric flux tube forms between them. This gives a linearly growing energy, at least until the flux tube breaks! Taking $`N\mathrm{}`$ separates the process of formation of the flux tube, which we want to understand, from its subsequent breaking and decay, which is also important but whose study we would be happy to postpone until we understand why the flux tube exists in the first place. The breaking of the flux tube occurs by interactions that are of order $`1/\sqrt{N}`$. The confining flux tubes of QCD behave like strings at least macroscopically, and it is natural to at least wonder if a more precise description of QCD can be given in terms of them.

The second point comes from the fact that the dominant Feynman diagrams of the large $`N`$ limit are “planar diagrams” which can be drawn on a sheet of paper with no lines crossing. This suggests the intuitive idea that nonperturbative effects will somehow close up the holes in the Feynman diagrams, giving smooth string worldsheets. The strings would be interpreted, hopefully, as confining flux tubes, giving an explanation of confinement.

The third point is that, after all, string theory was discovered almost 30 years ago because it seemed to describe some aspects of the strong interactions correctly. In hindsight, in this relation of string theory to strong interactions, $`1/N`$ corresponds to the string coupling constant. To the extent that the discovery of string theory was not a lucky historical accident, it was discovered because of its analogy with the $`1/N`$ expansion of four-dimensional gauge theories; and this certainly encourages us to wonder how deep that analogy goes.

But unlike the $`1/N`$ expansion in some other models, the $`1/N`$ expansion in gauge theories has been intractable for the last 25 years. The planar diagrams are simply too complicated to understand by any known method. The search for an understanding of the $`1/N`$ expansion via a kind of string theory has stimulated intense and at times extremely fruitful work; a recent discussion is . One important insight has been that to describe gauge theory in four dimensions via a string theory, the string theory must apparently be formulated in a world of more than four dimensions, possibly by including an extra dimension corresponding to Polyakov’s Liouville field.

We now move on to our second subject.

Black Hole Thermodynamics

What is a black hole?

Classically, a black hole absorbs and does not emit. Quantum mechanically, this is impossible, since, for example, hermiticity of the Hamiltonian implies that if there is a matrix element for absorption, there must also be a matrix element for emission.

At this level, the paradox was resolved by Hawking in 1975 . He showed that black holes do emit, in a way that is thermal in the limit of a large black hole. A black hole is characterized by a temperature, which for a Schwarzschild black hole in four dimensions of mass $`M`$ is of order $`T1/G_NM`$ (with $`G_N`$ being Newton’s constant), and has an entropy $`S=A/4G_N`$, with $`A`$ the area of the event horizon. (Such thermodynamic properties had been conjectured earlier by Bekenstein based on classical arguments.)

For a solar mass black hole, this is a fantastically small temperature and a huge entropy. For example, the entropy of a solar mass black hole is vastly bigger than the entropy of the sun in its present state.

What does the entropy of a black hole really mean? In the rest of physics, the entropy is the logarithm of the number of quantum states. But what are the quantum states of a black hole? Evidently there are many of them, as the entropy is so large. If the entropy of a black hole really counts the quantum states, it must be that a quantum black hole is not at all fully specified by giving just its mass, charge, and angular momentum – which give a complete specification classically.

Identifying the quantum states of a black hole is a question that combines quantum mechanics and gravity. So – at least among theories we know now – this question is really only well-posed in string theory, which is the only concrete candidate we have for a consistent quantum theory that incorporates General Relativity as a limiting approximation. But string theory in its first quarter century was not sufficiently well understood to shed any light on the quantum nature of black holes. The first partial answers have begun to emerge only in the last few years.

The idea is to consider black holes that are built out of “$`D`$-branes.” $`D`$-branes are nonperturbative excitations of string theory that have a strange “matrix” property. A single $`D`$ brane in $`n`$ dimensions has position coordinates $`x_1,x_2,\mathrm{},x_n`$, just like any other particle. But for a system of $`N`$ identical $`D`$-branes, the $`x_i`$ become $`N\times N`$ matrices that in general do not commute. The situation is a bit like the quantum mechanical noncommutativity of position and momentum – the familiar $`[p,x]=i\mathrm{}`$ – but now it is the different components of the position that do not commute. Moreover, there is a $`U(N)`$ symmetry acting on the $`N\times N`$ position matrices. It fact, this $`U(N)`$ symmetry is a gauge symmetry.

If we make a black hole from $`N`$ $`D`$-branes, we get a $`U(N)`$ gauge theory that describes certain black holes. To be more exact, these objects can be described as semiclassical black holes, with a horizon size large compared to the Planck length, only if $`N`$ is large (and certain other conditions are obeyed). So to compare to the thermodynamic description of black holes, we must take $`N`$ large.

For certain black holes, with only relatively “easy” gauge theory results, it has proved possible  to understand and count the quantum states, making contact with the Bekenstein-Hawking formula for the entropy. This success is limited to only certain kinds of black holes, and it does not address deeper questions like whether quantum mechanical unitarity is preserved in the formation and evaporation of a black hole.

But it raises the question: Would deeper results about black holes be related to more difficult aspects of large $`N`$ gauge theory?

To explain as much as we know of the answer to this question, I must move on to our third subject.

Quantum Mechanics In Anti de Sitter Space

Anti de Sitter space is a maximally symmetric world with negative cosmological constant. In one convenient coordinate system, the metric looks like

$$ds^2=\frac{dr^2}{1+r^2}+r^2d\mathrm{\Omega }^2(1+r^2)dt^2.$$

This spacetime has many peculiar properties which are related to the fact that the coefficient of $`dt^2`$ grows as $`r\mathrm{}`$.

One very desireable consequence of this is that it gives  an elegant infrared cutoff in the thermodynamics of black holes. Black hole thermodynamics suffers, apart from everything else, from the instability of the usual thermal ensemble in the presence of gravity. To speak of the temperature of a black hole can only be precise if the black hole is in thermal equilibrium; but in Minkowski space, a thermal ensemble of any positive temperature is unstable against gravitational collapse (which will produce a black hole much bigger and heavier than the one we originally undertook to study). The factor of $`1+r^2`$ in the Anti de Sitter metric gives a spatial dependence to the effective temperature, with the consequence that a thermal ensemble in Anti de Sitter space is perfectly stable. In particular one can really exhibit a black hole in thermal equilibrium with radiation in Anti de Sitter space, if the mass of the black hole is large enough.

This is a convenient context for studying quantum black holes; but what do we want to do with them?

At least with a little bit of hindsight, one answer to this question is: We would like to explore the notion of “holography.” To make sense of the puzzles of quantum black holes, it has been argued by ’t Hooft  and Susskind  (and by Thorn  in the string context) that nature should be “holographic,” a property that one might well characterize as magic. The idea of holography is that, in contrast to the usual description of physics by degrees of freedom that are approximately local, a theory with quantum gravity should have a description by degrees of freedom that are defined on the boundary of space.

This would make it possible to describe the formation and evaporation of a black hole just in terms of things that happen at spatial infinity, without delving into the details of what happens near the black hole horizon. Thus, a holographic description would make unitary in black hole physics manifest. But to describe what happens in the “bulk” of spacetime by dynamical variables that “live” at infinity seems well-nigh impossible, given the apparent locality of physics. In classical field theory, it probably really is impossible. So holography, if it holds, must be achieved in a way that does not commute with the passage to a classical limit.

The same factor of $`1+r^2`$ that makes Anti de Sitter space an attractive arena for studying black holes has other consequences that at first sight seem rather perplexing. A small calculation, given the metric as written above, shows that spatial infinity (that is, $`r=\mathrm{}`$) is at an infinite distance if one tries to get there along a spacelike path. But along a lightlike path, things are different. A light ray can reach infinity in Anti de Sitter space with only a finite time (or affine parameter) elapsed; so a signal propagated at the speed of light can reach the end of Anti de Sitter space and return in a finite time. Hence, to make sense of quantum theory in Anti de Sitter space, one needs a boundary condition at spatial infinity. This caused perplexity at first, but it was eventually learned  that one can put such a boundary condition and get a well-defined quantum mechanics in Anti de Sitter space. The relation between the bulk of Anti de Sitter space and its boundary has fascinated physicists for a long time, going back to early work by Dirac .

Synthesis

It is these ingredients that have now been combined, in a daring conjecture by Maldacena , subsequently formulated in a more precise form \[15,,16\]. The key, assuming that we want to describe black holes in four dimensions, is to start with Anti de Sitter space in five dimensions. The symmetry group of five-dimensional Anti de Sitter space is $`SO(2,4)`$. Now consider Minkowski space in four dimensions. Its conformal  symmetry group is the same group $`SO(2,4)`$.

So there are two kinds of physical theories with $`SO(2,4)`$ symmetry: any relativistic theory at all in five-dimensional Anti de Sitter space; or any conformal field theory in four-dimensional Minkowski space.

Now, Anti de Sitter space of five dimensions has a sort of boundary at spatial infinity. As I explained above, light rays can reach the boundary in finite time, and for this reason a boundary condition at spatial infinity is needed in order to make sense of quantum field theory in Anti de Sitter space. The boundary of Anti de Sitter five-space is a four-manifold which is in fact a copy of four-dimensional Minkowski space (conformally completed), and from this point of view the $`SO(2,4)`$ symmetry of Minkowski four-space is simply the restriction to the boundary of the $`SO(2,4)`$ symmetry of Anti de Sitter five-space.

The new insight in the recent work is that a gauge theory (or more generally a conventional flat space quantum field theory without gravity) on Minkowski four-space can be equivalent to a theory with quantum gravity in Anti de Sitter five-space. (Likewise, a conventional theory on Minkowski $`n`$-space can be related to a theory with quantum gravity on Anti de Sitter $`n+1`$-space.)

This correspondence would hold for any quantum gravity theory in a spacetime that is asymptotic to Anti de Sitter space. The only known candidates come from string theory. In the string theory case, we can in many cases determine just which conformally invariant gauge theory on Minkowski space is related to a given theory in Anti de Sitter space. On the gauge theory side, because $`SO(2,4)`$ acts on Minkowski space by conformal transformations, the gauge theory that arises is necessarily conformally invariant (its beta function vanishes); an example, which plays an important role in the correspondence, is the $`𝒩=4`$ super Yang-Mills theory.

The correspondence between these two types of theories is “holographic” in that a gravitational theory in the “bulk” of Anti de Sitter space has an alternative description in which all the degrees of freedom “live” on the boundary at spatial infinity. The semiclassical (weak coupling or $`\mathrm{}0`$) limit of the gravity theory becomes a large $`N`$ limit of the gauge theory, so as expected holography does not commute with the passage to a classical limit.

The existence of this holographic description of the supergravity/string theory makes quantum mechanical unitarity manifest. Black hole entropy is mapped to the entropy of the gauge theory, and the fact that the black hole entropy is proportional to the surface area of the horizon becomes a standard scaling relation of conformal field theory. (But, frustratingly, the constant of proportionality can with our present understanding be computed only in the $`2+1`$-dimensional case.)

Large $`N`$ is reinterpreted as a semiclassical or weak coupling limit – at least for the specific gauge theories that arise in the correspondence with Anti de Sitter space – rather as was anticipated 25 years ago.

After suitable perturbations, this correspondence can be used to deduce properties of more realistic gauge theories that are not conformally invariant. For certain four-dimensional gauge theories, which we conjecture but cannot prove to be in the same universality class as the pure gauge theory, confinement and the mass gap are interpreted as consequences of the topology of Euclidean black holes. In this framework, the deconfinement phase transition for gauge theories is mapped to a phase transition for Anti de Sitter black holes found long ago by Hawking and Page . The endstage of evaporation of a Schwarzschild black hole – where one must face the unresolved puzzles of quantum black hole physics – is mapped to the decay of the high temperature phase of the gauge theory, after being supercooled to temperatures at which it is not thermodynamically favored.

One can further identify the Wilson and ’t Hooft loop operators and the “baryon vertex” of gauge theories in terms of structures that appear in string theory on Anti de Sitter space. Many of their properties can be identified in this framework.

Outlook

What can one do, and what cannot one do, with the present understanding of this subject?

One can use known properties of gauge theory to get important qualitative insights about gravity, and vice-versa. But many questions that one would most like to answer remain out of reach. One cannot understand the endpoint of black hole evaporation, because in the relevant regime, the gauge theory is strongly coupled. And one cannot compute the hadron masses in four-dimensional pure gauge theory because in the relevant regime, the supergravity approximation to the Anti de Sitter space theory breaks down.

So I conclude with the same question that we asked before: Would (yet) deeper aspects of the $`1/N`$ expansion of gauge theories be related to (yet) deeper aspects of quantum black holes?

Research supported in part by NSF Grant PHY-9513835.

References

relax G. ’t Hooft, “A Planar Diagram Model For Strong Interactions,” Nucl. Phys. B72 (1974) 461. relax M. Teper, “$`SU(N)`$ Gauge Theories For All $`N`$ In 3 and 4 Dimensions,” Phys. Lett. B397 (1997) 223, hep-lat/9701003, “$`SU(N)`$ Gauge Theories In $`2+1`$ Dimensions,” hep-lat/9804008. relax E. Witten, “Baryons in The $`1/N`$ Expansion,” Nucl. Phys. B160 (1979) 57. relax S. Coleman, “$`1/N`$,” in the proceedings of the 1979 Erice School on Subnuclear Physics relax A. M. Polyakov, “String Theory And Quark Confinement,” hep-th/9711002. relax S. Hawking, “Particle Creation By Black Holes,” Commun. Math. Phys. 43 (1975) 199. relax A. Strominger and C. Vafa, “Microscopic Origin Of The Bekenstein-Hawking Entropy,” Phys. Lett. B379 (1996) 99. relax S. Hawking and D. Page, “Thermodynamics of Black Holes in Anti-de Sitter Space,” Commun. Math. Phys. 87 (1983) 577. relax G. ’t Hooft, “Dimensional Reduction In Quantum Gravity,” in Salamfest 1993, p. 284, gr-qc/9310026. relax L. Susskind, “The World As A Hologram,” J. Math. Phys. 36 (1995) 6377. relax C. Thorn, “Reformulating String Theory With The $`1/N`$ Expansion,” lecture at first A. D. Sakharov Conference on Physics, hep-th/9405069. relax S. J. Avis, C. Isham, and D. Storey, “Quantum Field Theory In Anti-de Sitter Space-Time,” Phys. Rev. D18 (1978) 3565. relax For example, see M. Flato and C. Fronsdal, “Quantum Field Theory of Singletons: The Rac,” J. Math. Phys. 22 (1981) 1100. relax J. Maldacena, “The Large $`N`$ Limit Of Superconformal Field Theories And Supergravity,” hep-th/9711200. relax S. Gubser, I. R. Klebanov, and A. M. Polyakov, “Gauge Theory Correlators From Non-Critical String Theory,” hep-th/9802109. relax E. Witten, “Anti de Sitter Space And Holography,” hep-th/9802150.