12:30 pm MCP - 3rd Floor Atrium
2d Yang-Mills, symmetric orbifolds and AdS3/CFT2.
The partition function of Euclidean 2d Yang-Mills (YM) with the gauge group SU(N) on a Riemann surface \Sigma_T is known exactly. Gross and Taylor showed that the large-N expansion of this partition function can be written as a combinatorial sum over covering maps of \Sigma_T. I present a relation between a sub-sector of 2d YM called chiral 2d YM, and a symmetric orbifold theory. In particular, the chiral 2d YM is seen as a specific deformation of the symmetric orbifold of a trivial theory. I discuss a world-sheet description of this symmetric orbifold. Performing the same deformation from the string side, we obtain a perturbative world-sheet description of chiral 2d YM. This is a work in progress with M. Gaberdiel and B. Knighton.