1203.5554 (Mikhail A. Vasiliev)

Holography, Unfolding and Higher-Spin Theory    [PDF]

Mikhail A. Vasiliev

Holographic duality is argued to relate classes of models that have equivalent unfolded formulation, hence exhibiting different space-time visualizations for the same theory. This general phenomenon is illustrated by the $AdS_4$ higher-spin gauge theory shown to be dual to the theory of 3d conformal currents of all spins interacting with 3d conformal higher-spin fields of Chern-Simons type. The resulting 3d boundary conformal theory is nonlinear, providing an interacting version of the 3d boundary sigma model conjectured by Klebanov and Polyakov to be dual to the $AdS_4$ HS theory in the large $N$ limit. Being a gauge theory it escapes the conditions of the theorem of Maldacena and Zhiboedov, which force a 3d boundary conformal theory to be free. Higher-spin holographic duality is also discussed for the $AdS_3/CFT_2$ case and duality between higher-spin theories and nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. In the latter case it is shown in particular that ($dS$) $AdS$ geometry in the higher-spin setup is dual to the (inverted) harmonic potential in the quantum-mechanical setup.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.5554