String worldsheet for accelerating quark

Abstract

We consider the AdS bulk dual to an external massive quark in SYM following an arbitrary trajectory on Minkowski background. While a purely outgoing boundary condition on the gluonic field allows one to express the corresponding string worldsheet in a closed form, the setup has curious consequences. In particular, we argue that any quark whose trajectory on flat spacetime approaches that of a light ray in the remote past (as happens e.g. in the case of uniform acceleration) must necessarily be accompanied by an anti-quark. This is puzzling from the field theory standpoint, since one would expect that a sole quark following any timelike trajectory should be allowed. We explain the resolution in terms of boundary and initial conditions. We analyze the configuration in global AdS, which naturally suggests a modification to the boundary conditions allowing for a single accelerated quark without accompanying anti-quark. We contrast this resolution with earlier proposals.