Long Strings and Symmetric Product Orbifold from the AdS$_3$ Bethe Equations

Abstract: A particularly rich class of integrable systems arises from the AdS/CFT duality. There, the two-dimensional quantum field theory living on the string worldsheet may be understood in terms of a non-relativistic factorized S matrix, and the energy spectrum may be derived by techniques such as the mirror thermodynamic Bethe ansatz or the quantum spectral curve. In the case of AdS$_3$/CFT$_2$ without Ramond-Ramond fluxes, the worldhseet theory is a Wess-Zumino-Witten model with continous and discrete representations which, for the lowest allowed level, is dual to the symmetric product orbifold of a free theory. I will show how continuous representations may arise from integrability, and that at lowest level the Bethe equations yield the symmetric product orbifold partition function on the nose.