Speaker
Description
I will discuss the definition and the consequences of Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking (SSB) for a quantum field theory on a rigid Anti-de Sitter (AdS) background. In particular, for continuous symmetries, I will review the existence of a (trivial) conformal manifold, and explain how to compute its metric from the two-point function of the bulk current. I will then discuss two applications: (1) to quantum electrodynamics in 3d, where the possible pattern of symmetry breaking involving the flavor and magnetic symmetries can be studied reliably in perturbation theory, when the AdS radius is small; (2) to the subleading strong coupling expansion of the Bremsstrahlung function of the ½ BPS Wilson-Maldacena line in N=4 SYM, which can be computed from the two-point function of the tilt operator, using a judicious treatment of SSB on the AdS_2 worldsheet to fix the normalization and get a finite result.