The Holographic Weyl Anomaly

The Holographic Weyl Anomaly

June 1998 | M. Henningson, K. Skenderis
This paper calculates the Weyl anomaly for conformal field theories (CFTs) that can be described via the AdS/CFT correspondence. The anomaly depends only on the dimension $ d $ of the manifold on which the CFT is defined, up to a constant. The authors present concrete expressions for the anomaly in the physically relevant cases $ d = 2, 4, 6 $. In $ d = 2 $, the central charge is found to be $ c = \frac{3l}{2G_N} $, consistent with the asymptotic symmetry algebra of $ AdS_3 $. In $ d = 4 $, the anomaly matches that of the $ N = 4 $ superconformal $ SU(N) $ gauge theory. In $ d = 6 $, the anomaly for the $ (0, 2) $ theory is calculated for the first time, showing a growth proportional to $ N^3 $, where $ N $ is the number of coincident M5 branes, and vanishes for a Ricci-flat background. The paper describes a regularization procedure that preserves general covariance, allowing the calculation of the anomaly. The anomaly is shown to depend on the conformal structure of the boundary metric, and the result is expressed in terms of conformal invariants. The calculation is carried out for $ d = 2, 4, 6 $, and the results are compared with known values for the $ AdS_3 $ boundary CFT and the $ N = 4 $ superconformal gauge theory. The anomaly for the $ (0, 2) $ theory is found to grow as $ N^3 $, consistent with the entropy of the brane system. The results highlight the connection between the IR and UV behavior in holographic theories and demonstrate the importance of conformal invariance in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence.This paper calculates the Weyl anomaly for conformal field theories (CFTs) that can be described via the AdS/CFT correspondence. The anomaly depends only on the dimension $ d $ of the manifold on which the CFT is defined, up to a constant. The authors present concrete expressions for the anomaly in the physically relevant cases $ d = 2, 4, 6 $. In $ d = 2 $, the central charge is found to be $ c = \frac{3l}{2G_N} $, consistent with the asymptotic symmetry algebra of $ AdS_3 $. In $ d = 4 $, the anomaly matches that of the $ N = 4 $ superconformal $ SU(N) $ gauge theory. In $ d = 6 $, the anomaly for the $ (0, 2) $ theory is calculated for the first time, showing a growth proportional to $ N^3 $, where $ N $ is the number of coincident M5 branes, and vanishes for a Ricci-flat background. The paper describes a regularization procedure that preserves general covariance, allowing the calculation of the anomaly. The anomaly is shown to depend on the conformal structure of the boundary metric, and the result is expressed in terms of conformal invariants. The calculation is carried out for $ d = 2, 4, 6 $, and the results are compared with known values for the $ AdS_3 $ boundary CFT and the $ N = 4 $ superconformal gauge theory. The anomaly for the $ (0, 2) $ theory is found to grow as $ N^3 $, consistent with the entropy of the brane system. The results highlight the connection between the IR and UV behavior in holographic theories and demonstrate the importance of conformal invariance in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence.
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