Spectral curve for open strings attached to the Y=0 brane

Abstract

The concept of spectral curve is generalized to open strings in AdS/CFT with integrability preserving boundary conditions. Our definition is based on the logarithms of the eigenvalues of the open monodromy matrix and makes possible to determine all the analytic, symmetry and asymptotic properties of the quasimomenta. We work out the details of the whole construction for the Y = 0 brane boundary condition. The quasimomenta of open circular strings are explicitly calculated. We use the asymptotic solutions of the Y -system and the boundary Bethe Ansatz equations to recover the spectral curve in the strong coupling scaling limit. Using the curve the quasiclassical fluctuations of some open string solutions are also studied.

34 pages, 2 figures; v3: typos corrected, sect.2.2 improved