On the abundance of supersymmetric strings in $AdS_3\times S^3\times S^3\times S^1$ describing BPS line operators

Abstract

We study supersymmetric open strings in type IIB $AdS_3 \times S^3 \times S^3 \times S^1$ with mixed R-R and NS-NS fields. We focus on strings ending along a straight line at the boundary of $AdS_3$, which can be interpreted as line operators in a dual CFT$_2$. We study both classical configurations and quadratic fluctuations around them. We find that strings sitting at a fixed point in $S^3 \times S^3 \times S^1$, i.e. satisfying Dirichlet boundary conditions, are 1/2 BPS. We also show that strings sitting at different points of certain submanifolds of $S^3 \times S^3 \times S^1$ can still share some fraction of the supersymmetry. This allows to define supersymmetric smeared configurations by the superposition of them, which range from 1/2 BPS to 1/8 BPS. In addition to the smeared configurations, there are as well 1/4 BPS and 1/8 BPS strings satisfying Neumann boundary conditions. All these supersymmetric strings are shown to be connected by a network of interpolating BPS boundary conditions. Our study reveals the existence of a rich moduli of supersymmetric open string configurations, for which the appearance of massless fermionic fields in the spectrum of quadratic fluctuations is crucial.