Master Symmetry for Holographic Wilson Loops

Abstract

We identify the symmetry underlying the recently observed spectral-parameter transformations of holographic Wilson loops alias minimal surfaces in AdS/CFT. The generator of this nonlocal symmetry is shown to furnish a raising operator on the classical Yangian-type charges of symmetric coset models. We explicitly demonstrate how this master symmetry acts on strong-coupling Wilson loops and indicate a possible extension to arbitrary coupling.

5 pages, 1 table, 1 figure, v2: plots added, slight rewriting v3: definition of deltahat below (28) corrected