Exploring the ground state spectrum of gamma-deformed N=4 SYM

Abstract: We study the gamma-deformation of the planar N=4 super Yang-Mills theory which breaks all supersymmetries but is expected to preserve integrability of the model. We focus on the operator Tr$(\phi_1\phi_1)$ built from two scalars, whose integrability description has been questioned before due to contributions from double-trace counterterms. We show that despite these subtle effects, the integrability-based Quantum Spectral Curve (QSC) framework works perfectly for this state and in particular reproduces the known 1-loop prediction. This resolves an earlier controversy concerning this operator and provides further evidence that the gamma-deformed model is an integrable CFT at least in the planar limit. We use the QSC to compute the first 5 weak coupling orders of the anomalous dimension analytically, matching known results in the fishnet limit, and also compute it numerically all the way from weak to strong coupling. We also utilize this data to extract a new coefficient of the beta function of the double-trace operator couplings.