Irrelevant deformations and the holographic Callan-Symanzik equation

Abstract: We discuss the systematics of obtaining the Callan-Symanzik equation within the framework of the gauge/gravity dualities. We present a completely general formula which in particular takes into account the new holographic renormalization results of arXiv:1102.2239. Non-trivial beta functions are obtained from new logarithmic terms in the radial expansion of the fields. The appearance of multi-trace counterterms is also discussed in detail and we show that mixing between single- and multi-trace operators leads to very specific non-linearities in the Callan-Symanzik equation. Additionally, we compute the conformal anomaly for a scalar three-point function in a CFT.