String Duals of Two-Dimensional Yang-Mills and Symmetric Product Orbifolds

We propose a bosonic string dual to large $N$ chiral Yang-Mills in two dimensions at finite ’t Hooft coupling. The worldsheet theory is a $β$-$γ$ system deformed by a chiral Polchinski-Strominger term. We reproduce the partition function on a torus, cylinder three-point amplitudes, and the area law for Wilson loops. We also present candidate string duals to symmetric product orbifolds for general seed CFTs with $c<24$ and their $T\bar{T}$-, $J\bar{T}$-deformations. The results hint at interrelations among confining, nonrelativistic and matrix strings, and AdS$_3/$CFT$_2$.

💡 Research Summary

The authors present a novel bosonic string description of large‑N chiral two‑dimensional Yang‑Mills (YM) at finite ’t Hooft coupling and extend the construction to symmetric‑product orbifolds of arbitrary seed conformal field theories (CFTs) with central charge c < 24, including their T ={T} and J ={T} deformations.

The world‑sheet action for the YM dual is a β‑γ system coupled to a chiral linear‑dilaton (CLD) term,
S = ∫ d²z