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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Soon after Maldacena proposed the AdS/CFT correspondence , it was realized that there is a close relation between the radial flow in AdS space the renormalization group flow of the dual field theory. Since then, there has been a considerable effort to understand this relation in more detail. In this lecture, we review the approach of , which uses the Hamilton-Jacobi equations of canonical gravity to derive the holographic renormalization group in a general setting. In addition, we include some background material and discuss some applications, in particular to domain wall solutions and brane world scenarios. We will not attempt to give a complete review or even a complete list of papers where the holographic renormalization group is discussed. Some of the earlier papers include , for more recent lists of references see for example . See also the contributions of Behrndt, Herrmann, Theisen, Bakas and Kalkkinen to these proceedings.

A brief outline is as follows. We will first review the AdS/CFT correspondence, in particular those features that are important in understanding the holographic renormalization group flow. Next, we briefly discuss these renormalization group flows and discuss a prototype flow, namely a domain wall solution. We then remind the reader of the basic idea of Hamilton-Jacobi theory in classical mechanics. We subsequently apply Hamilton-Jacobi theory to five-dimensional gravity coupled to scalar fields, and explain how to extract from those the Callan-Symanzik equations of the dual field theory. We discuss some applications of this technique to the computation of the conformal anomaly, the cosmological constant problem and brane world scenarios. We conclude with some comments and by mentioning open problems.

## 2 A brief review of the AdS/CFT correspondence

The holographic renormalization group finds its origin in the AdS/CFT correspondence, and many of its qualitative features have a clear interpretation in that context. Therefore, we first give a brief review of the relevant aspects of the AdS/CFT correspondence. For a more detailed review and many references, see .

The standard example of the AdS/CFT correspondence is the duality between type IIB string theory compactified on $`AdS_5\times S^5`$, and four-dimensional $`N=4`$ super Yang-Mills theory . This duality arises by considering D3 branes in type IIB string theory. Taking a low-energy limit of the string theory with the D3 branes yields $`N=4`$ super Yang-Mills theory, whereas the same low-energy limit applied to the dual supergravity description of the D3 branes leaves us with $`AdS_5\times S^5`$. The so-called Poincaré patch of $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ is described by the metric

$$ds^2=dr^2+e^{2r/L}\eta _{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu .$$
(1)
Here, $`L`$ is the radius of of $`AdS_5`$, $`L=\left(g_{YM}^2N\right)^{1/4}`$. The boundary of $`AdS_5`$ is the region where $`r\mathrm{}`$, and this is where the field theory “lives”. The coordinate $`r`$ is directly related to the radial distance to the D3 branes in the original description of D3 branes in type IIB string theory. Notice that the metric (1) has an invariance which maps

$$rr+a,\eta _{\mu \nu }\eta _{\mu \nu }e^{2a/L}.$$
(2)
Thus, the scale set by the metric $`\eta _{\mu \nu }`$ has no invariant meaning in (1). In the end, we want to identify $`\eta _{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu `$ with the metric of the space on which the field theory lives. We therefore see that the field theory must be insensitive to the scale of the metric, in other words, it must be a conformally invariant field theory. Four dimensional $`N=4`$ super Yang-Mills theory has this property, and this is one of the first consistency checks of the $`AdS/CFT`$ duality.

In  it was described how one computes correlation functions of the boundary field theory using the bulk supergravity description of $`AdS_5\times S^5`$. It is crucial for this that there is a one-to-one correspondence between fields in the bulk and operators on the boundary. Consider a free massive scalar field, with mass $`m`$, in an $`AdS_5`$ background. A generic solution of the field equation behaves for $`r\mathrm{}`$ as

$$\varphi \left(r\right)\alpha e^{\left(\mathrm{\Delta }4\right)r/L}+\beta e^{\mathrm{\Delta }r/L}+\mathrm{}$$
(3)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is related to $`m`$ via

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\left(\mathrm{\Delta }4\right)=m^2L^2.$$
(4)
The transformation (2) rescales the terms in (3) in a simple way. That suggests the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is related to the scaling dimension of the boundary operator that corresponds to the bulk field $`\varphi `$. In fact, it turns out that $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is precisely the scaling dimension. In unitary theories, scaling dimensions have to be nonnegative. This implies that the mass $`m`$ has to satisfy the bound

$$m^2L^24.$$
(5)
This bound is known as the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound . Its interpretation in $`AdS`$ is that $`AdS`$ space with massive scalar fields is only stable if the mass of the scalar field obeys (5). Thus, contrary to the flat space, $`AdS`$ space can support fields with certain negative mass squared.

From now on we will put $`L=1`$. We denote by $`\varphi ^I`$ a set of bulk fields, and by $`𝒪_I`$ the corresponding operators of the boundary theory. The usual statement that relates boundary correlation functions to bulk quantities is

$$e^{{\scriptscriptstyle \widehat{\varphi }^I𝒪_I}}_{\mathrm{CFT}}=e^{S\left[\varphi ^I\right]_{\mathrm{sugra}}}.$$
(6)
In this equation, $`S\left[\varphi ^I\right]_{\mathrm{sugra}}`$ refers to the supergravity action, evaluated on a solution of the equations of motion with boundary condition

$$\varphi \left(r\mathrm{}\right)\widehat{\varphi }^I.$$
(7)
More precisely, the right hand side of (6) should be the full string partition function evaluated with the boundary conditions (7). In a saddle point approximation, this reduces to the classical supergravity action evaluated on a solution of the equations of motion. The left hand side of (6) is the generating functional for correlations functions in the boundary CFT.

However, as we see in (1) and (3), neither the metric nor the scalar fields become constant as we approach the boundary of $`AdS`$. Therefore, (6) cannot be quite correct as it stands. An improved version of (6) that takes the boundary behavior into account is

$$e^{{\scriptscriptstyle \widehat{\varphi }^I𝒪_I}}_{\mathrm{CFT},\mathrm{metric}\widehat{g}_{\mu \nu }}=e^{S\left[\varphi ^I,ds^2=dr^2+g_{\mu \nu }(x,r)dx^\mu dx^\nu \right]_{\mathrm{sugra}}},$$
(8)
where $`\varphi ^I`$ and $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ solve the supergravity equations of motion and behave for large $`r`$ as

$$\varphi ^I\left(r\mathrm{}\right)e^{r\left(\mathrm{\Delta }4\right)}\widehat{\varphi }^Ig_{\mu \nu }\left(r\mathrm{}\right)e^{2r}\widehat{g}_{\mu \nu }.$$
(9)
We have taken one of the two asymptotic behaviors of $`\varphi ^I`$ in (9). It was shown in  that in the solution

$$\varphi \left(r\right)\alpha e^{\left(\mathrm{\Delta }4\right)r/L}+\beta e^{\mathrm{\Delta }r/L}+\mathrm{}$$
(10)
the first part corresponds to a source for the operator $`𝒪`$, and that the second part corresponds to changing the state of the boundary theory. In the new state, the operator $`𝒪`$ acquires an expectation value. Examples of different states of the boundary theory are different point on the Coulomb branch, which are determined by giving expectation values to the scalar fields in the gauge theory. The correlation functions in (8) are computed with respect to the vacuum state of the gauge theory, and therefore we need the boundary behavior as in (9).

It is important to keep in mind that operators with $`\mathrm{\Delta }<4`$ are relevant, operators with $`\mathrm{\Delta }=4`$ are marginal and those with $`\mathrm{\Delta }>4`$ are irrelevant. For each of these types of operators, the asymptotic behavior of the scalar field is different. For irrelevant deformations, the fields blow up near the boundary, and (8) can only be used to compute correlation functions of such operators, as the full generating function is ill-defined. For marginal and relevant deformations, the full generating function does make sense, and in the sequel we will mainly have such deformations in mind. Even for marginal and relevant deformations, it is not at all clear that reasonable solutions of the equations of motion do exist. For the metric, it was shown in  that for metrics very close to the metric (1), good solutions do exist, but in general the situation is unclear.

Even though (8) is an improvement over (6), it is not yet a complete prescription for the correlation functions, because the supergravity action will in general diverge. To deal with this problem, we proceed very much as in field theory, namely we first introduce a finite cutoff, subtract divergent terms and then take the cutoff to infinity. As cutoff, we truncate $`AdS`$ at $`r=r_0`$. This has the interpretation of a UV cutoff in the boundary theory . The $`AdS/CFT`$ correspondence now becomes

$$e^{{\scriptscriptstyle \widehat{\varphi }^I𝒪_I}}_{\mathrm{CFT},\mathrm{metric}\widehat{g}_{\mu \nu }}=e^{lim_{r_0\mathrm{}}\left\{S\left[\varphi ^I,ds^2=dr^2+g_{\mu \nu }(x,r)dx^\mu dx^\nu \right]_{\mathrm{sugra},rr_0}\mathrm{singular}\mathrm{terms}\right\}}.$$
(11)
The boundary conditions are still as in (9). Notice that the supergravity action in (11) is evaluated on a space with a boundary. The action for supergravity on a space with a boundary also contains an extra boundary term, proportional to the extrinsic curvature of the boundary, which is needed to have a good variational problem .

The singular terms that appear in (11) depend on the number of dimensions. On $`AdS_5`$, there will be a singular term related to the volume of $`AdS_5`$ that grows as $`e^{4r_0}`$. In addition, there will be a term related to the curvature of $`AdS_5`$ that grows as $`e^{2r_0}`$, and there will be a term connected to the conformal anomaly of the boundary field theory, which will be linear in $`r_0`$. The detailed form of these divergences will be discussed later.

## 3 RG flows in AdS/CFT

As we mentioned in the introduction, soon after Maldacena’s paper on the AdS/CFT correspondence  it was realized and examined in examples that there is a close relation between the $`r`$-dependence of supergravity solutions and the RG-flow of the boundary theory. One can already see part of this connection in the discussion of the previous section. If we perform for a large value of $`r_0`$ the following substitutions (inspired by (2))

$$r_0r_0+a,\widehat{g}e^{2a}\widehat{g},\widehat{\varphi }e^{a\left(\mathrm{\Delta }4\right)}\widehat{\varphi }$$
(12)
then the supergravity solution will remain unchanged. There will be a corresponding asymptotic symmetry for the boundary theory correlation functions. These will be modified by finite $`r`$ effects, and by the conformal anomaly, as the conformal anomaly is the only singular term that does not have an asymptotic invariance of the form (12). In any case, the symmetry (12) is very reminiscent of renormalization group flow, if we make the following dictionary

$`r_0`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{cutoff}\mathrm{\Lambda }`$
$`\widehat{g}`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{scale}\mu `$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ $``$ $`\left(\mathrm{anomalous}\right)\mathrm{dimension}.`$ (13)
In addition, the subtraction of the singularities in (11) is very similar to the renormalization procedure of a quantum field theory.

To make this connection very precise is difficult, because we do not know to which regularization and renormalization scheme the finite cutoff $`r_0`$ corresponds in the boundary theory. It seems unlikely that it is related to one of the conventional renormalization schemes, like dimensional regularization. Properties that are insensitive to the details of the renormalization scheme can be computed both in the bulk and on the boundary and compared to each other. An example of such a property is the form of the renormalization group equations. These will be derived a bit later after we discussed the Hamilton-Jacobi equations of gravity.

The circle of ideas appearing here has been around for a while. A relation between the world-sheet and space-time renormalization group was discussed in . The idea that the dilaton is related to a scale and to an extra dimension appears in non-critical string theory and matrix theory , and also in attempts to view the QCD string as a non-critical string theory .

Before proceeding, we give a prototype example of the kind of flows in supergravity that one encounters in the AdS/CFT context. These flows also go under the name of domain walls, and appear e.g. in . The one described below is given in . In general, such flows are solutions to the equations of motion of actions of the form

$$S=d^4x𝑑r\sqrt{g}\left(\frac{1}{4}R+\frac{1}{2}_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi V\left(\varphi \right)\right).$$
(14)
We consider solutions of the equations of motion that have 4d Poincaré invariance and that are of the form

$$ds^2=e^{2A\left(r\right)}\left(\eta _{ij}dx^idx^j\right)dr^2,\varphi (x,r)\varphi \left(r\right).$$
(15)
Substituting this form back into (14), and dividing out the volume of the 4d flat space, we are left with a simple $`0+1`$ dimensional action for the quantities $`A\left(r\right),\varphi \left(r\right)`$,

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑re^{4A}\left[3\left(A^{}\left(r\right)+\frac{1}{3}W\right)^2\frac{1}{2}\left(\varphi ^{}\left(r\right)\frac{1}{2}W^{}\left(\varphi \right)\right)^2\right]}`$ (16)
$`{\displaystyle 𝑑r\frac{}{r}\left[e^{4A}\left(2A^{}+\frac{1}{2}W\right)\right]}.`$
Here, $`W`$ is any solution of the equation

$$V=\frac{1}{8}W^{}\left(\varphi \right)^2\frac{1}{3}W\left(\varphi \right)^2.$$
(17)
This is similar to the relation between the scalar potential $`V`$ and the superpotential $`W`$ in supergravity theories, but here it appears naturally without supersymmetry. The action (16) is written in a form reminiscent of BPS equations, namely as a sum of squares and a total derivative. The squares do not come with the same sign, so the action is not quite of BPS form, but it is still true that putting the squares each equal to zero will yield solutions to the equations of motion. The full set of equations of motion of (14) is actually larger than those obtained from (16), and reads

$`\varphi ^{\prime \prime }+4A^{}\varphi ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`V^{}\left(\varphi \right)`$
$`A^{\prime \prime }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\varphi ^2`$ (18)
$`A^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}V\left(\varphi \right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\varphi ^2.`$
One easily verifies that once the squares in (16) are put equal to zero, these equations are all satisfied. Thus, if we pick a $`W`$ that solves (17), and choose two initial conditions $`A\left(r_1\right)`$ and $`\varphi \left(r_1\right)`$ at $`r=r_1`$, we can integrate the equations $`A^{}=\frac{1}{3}W\left(\varphi \right)`$ and $`\varphi ^{}=\frac{1}{2}W^{}\left(\varphi \right)`$ from $`r_1`$ to $`r_2`$ and find a solution. If we evaluate (16) for this solution, we find

$$S=\frac{1}{6}\left(e^{4A\left(r_2\right)}W\left(r_2\right)e^{4A\left(r_1\right)}W\left(r_1\right)\right).$$
(19)
The action only depends on the values of $`A`$ and $`W`$ at the endpoints. We will later see how we can rederive this result using the Hamilton-Jacobi equations.

It is an interesting question whether the procedure given here provides all possible solutions to the equations of motion. In a supersymmetric context, the first order equations would be forced upon us by requiring a supersymmetric solution, but in the purely bosonic case this is no longer obviously the case. Suppose that we are given some smooth solution of the equations of motion, with $`\left|\varphi ^{}\left(r\right)\right|0`$. Then we can certainly define a function $`W\left(\varphi \right)`$ such that $`A^{}\left(r\right)=\frac{1}{3}W\left(\varphi \left(r\right)\right)`$. Using this definition, the second equation in (18) implies that $`\varphi ^{}=\frac{1}{2}W^{}\left(\varphi \right)`$, and (17) is a consequence of the third equation in (18), after which the first equation of (18) is trivially satisfied. The general solution of the equations of motion is therefore obtained by gluing together solutions of the set of first order equations. At the glueing point, the potential $`V`$ satisfies $`V^{}\left(\varphi \right)=0`$ and has an extremum. Thus, solutions can be naturally decomposed in pieces that roll between the extrema of $`V`$, and each of the pieces is described by some set of first order equations. If $`W`$ is given, and both $`\varphi \left(r_1\right)`$ and $`\varphi \left(r_2\right)`$ are fixed by e.g. a potential at the endpoints, then the difference between $`r_1`$ and $`r_2`$ is also fixed. This is because the first order system describing the flow of $`\varphi `$ will only have a solution with the right boundary conditions if $`r_1r_2`$ is tuned in the right way. This dynamical tuning of the distance between the endpoints is known as the Goldberger-Wise mechanism .

## 4 Hamilton-Jacobi theory

The main tool in the derivation of renormalization group equations from 5d gravity is the Hamilton-Jacobi formalism. As a reminder, we briefly review the formalism for quantum mechanics.

Consider a classical action

$$S=_{x\left(t_1\right)=x_1}^{x\left(t_2\right)=x_2}(q,\dot{q})𝑑t,$$
(20)
and denote by $`S[x_1,x_2]`$ the value of the action evaluated along the solution of the equations of motion $`q_0\left(t\right)`$ with the prescribed boundary conditions. We are interested in the behavior of $`S[x_1,x_2]`$ as we vary $`x_2`$. If we replace $`x_2`$ by $`x_2+\delta x_2`$, the solution of the equations of motion is replaced by $`q_0\left(t\right)+\delta q_0\left(t\right)`$. The variation of $`S[x_1,x_2]`$ is given by

$`\delta S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle (q_0+\delta q_0,\dot{q}_0+\delta \dot{q}_0)}{\displaystyle (q_0,\dot{q}_0)}`$ (21)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{t_1}^{t_2}}\left(\delta q_0{\displaystyle \frac{}{q}}+\delta \dot{q}_0{\displaystyle \frac{}{\dot{q}}}\right)𝑑t`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{t_1}^{t_2}}\delta q_0\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{q}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\dot{q}}}\right)+\delta q_0{\displaystyle \frac{}{\dot{q}}}|_{t_1}^{t_2}`$
$`=`$ $`\delta x_2{\displaystyle \frac{}{\dot{q}}}\left(t_2\right)=\delta x_2p\left(t_2\right).`$
In the one but last line, the first term vanishes since we assumed that $`q_0`$ was a solution of the classical equations of motion. We see that the derivative of $`S[x_1,x_2]`$ with respect to $`x_2`$ is given by the momentum $`p\left(t_2\right)`$. We can therefore in the Hamiltonian replace momenta by derivatives of the action. This then finally leads to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation

$$H(q,\frac{S}{q})=\frac{S}{t}.$$
(22)
A convenient way to think about this is to remember that path integrals in quantum mechanics with boundary conditions actually compute wave functions. Wave functions satisfy the Schrödinger equation

$$\left(\frac{\mathrm{}}{i}\frac{}{t}H(q,\frac{\mathrm{}}{i}\frac{}{q})\right)\mathrm{\Psi }=0.$$
(23)
If we write

$$\mathrm{\Psi }=e^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}S}$$
(24)
and expand (23) to lowest order in $`\mathrm{}`$, we recover the Hamilton-Jacobi equation (22). Indeed, the classical action is the lowest order approximation to the quantum mechanical path integral (the WKB approximation).

As an example, consider the relativistic point particle. The Hamilton-Jacobi equation reads

$$\frac{S}{x^\mu }\frac{S}{x_\mu }=m^2c^2.$$
(25)
The right hand side is not equal to $`S/t`$, but a constant. This is a consequence of the reparametrization invariance of the point particle action. Something similar happens in string theory, where the Virasoro constraint $`L_0=1`$ (which also is a consequence of reparametrization invariance) fixes the value of the Hamiltonian as well.

There are several solutions to (25). For instance, for a classical trajectory we have

$$S=mc\sqrt{\left(xx_0\right)_\mu \left(xx_0\right)^\mu },$$
(26)
but $`S=a_\mu x^\mu `$, with $`a^\mu a_\mu =m^2c^2`$ also solves the Hamilton-Jacobi equation.

The Hamilton-Jacobi formalism also applies to gravity in its canonical form, the latter being known as the ADM formalism . We will be specifically interested in the five dimensional case, but everything generalizes in a straightforward way to other dimensions. We use Euclidean signature. We can always write the five-dimensional metric in the form

$$ds^2=N^2dr^2+g_{\mu \nu }(x,r)\left(dx^\mu +N^\mu dr\right)\left(dx^\nu +N^\nu dr\right)$$
(27)
where $`N`$ is known as the lapse function and $`N^\mu `$ as the shift function. The role of the coordinate $`r`$ will be similar to that of a time coordinate, and it is the direct generalization of the radial coordinate of $`AdS_5`$. Instead of flows in time, this Hamilton-Jacobi formalism will describe flows in the radial direction $`r`$, which we expect to be the flow that corresponds to renormalization group flow. Locally, we can use the diffeomorphism invariance to choose $`N=1`$ and $`N^\mu =0`$, and we will work in this gauge from now on. However, we must still impose the $`N`$ and $`N^\mu `$ equations of motion, and these give rise to the Hamilton constraint and the diffeomorphism constraint respectively. The Hamilton constraint will provide us with the Hamilton-Jacobi equation.

The system we will consider is five-dimensional gravity, minimally coupled to a set of scalars $`\varphi ^I`$, with potential $`V\left(\varphi \right)`$, and kinetic term with $`\frac{1}{2}\varphi ^IG_{IJ}\left(\varphi \right)\varphi ^J`$. The variables of the theory are therefore the metric $`g^{\mu \nu }`$ and the scalars $`\varphi ^I`$. The corresponding canonical momenta will be denoted by $`\pi _{\mu \nu }`$ and $`\pi _I`$. The momenta can, as above, be related to derivatives of the classical action $`S`$ with respect to the boundary conditions. In this case, we choose as our boundary a slice at fixed values of $`r`$, and $`S[\varphi ,g]`$ will be the classical supergravity action, evaluated on a solution of the equations of motion, with boundary conditions $`g`$ and $`\varphi `$ at the boundary. As we mentioned previously, the classical action for gravity on a manifold with a boundary has some extra boundary terms in order to have a good variational problem, and these boundary terms have to be taken into account in the evaluation of the classical action $`S`$.

The Hamilton constraint takes the form

$$=\left(\pi ^{\mu \nu }\pi _{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{3}\pi _\mu ^\mu \pi _\nu ^\nu \right)+\frac{1}{2}\pi _IG^{IJ}\left(\varphi \right)\pi _J+(\varphi ,g)=0,$$
(28)
where $``$ denotes the local lagrangian density

$$(\varphi ,g)=V\left(\varphi \right)+R+\frac{1}{2}^\mu \varphi ^IG_{IJ}\left(\varphi \right)_\mu \varphi ^J.$$
(29)
Here we have chosen to work in the 5-dimensional Einstein frame, so that we can use 5-d Planck units with Newton constant equal to one.

The 5-dimensional supergravity equations of motion are implied by the standard Hamilton equations coming from $``$, supplemented with the diffeomorphism constraint

$$^\mu \pi _{\mu \nu }+\pi _I_\nu \varphi ^I=0,$$
(30)
as well as the Hamilton constraint (28).

Our goal will be to express the constraints (28) and (30) in terms of $`S[\varphi ,g]`$. The momenta are expressed in terms of the action $`S[\varphi ,g]`$ via

$$\pi _I=\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}\frac{\delta S}{\delta \varphi ^I},\pi _{\mu \nu }=\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}\frac{\delta S}{\delta g^{\mu \nu }}.$$
(31)
Let us insert these relations into the constraints (30) and (28). Equation (30) gives

$$^\mu \frac{\delta S}{\delta g^{\mu \nu }}+_\nu \varphi ^I\frac{\delta S}{\delta \varphi ^I}=0.$$
(32)
This constraint is easily satisfied: it simply means that the effective action $`S`$ is invariant under 4-d coordinate transformations. Equation (28) takes the form

$$\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}\left(\frac{1}{3}\left(g^{\mu \nu }\frac{\delta S}{\delta g^{\mu \nu }}\right)^2g^{\mu \lambda }g^{\nu \rho }\frac{\delta S}{\delta g^{\mu \nu }}\frac{\delta S}{\delta g^{\lambda \rho }}\frac{1}{2}G^{IJ}\frac{\delta S}{\delta \varphi ^I}\frac{\delta S}{\delta \varphi ^J}\right)=\sqrt{g}(\varphi ,g).$$
(33)
This is the Hamilton-Jacobi constraint of gravity coupled to scalars and it will play a central role in the remainder. It is important to realize that it is not a constraint on the value of the variations of the action $`S`$ nor an equation of motion of the 4-dimensional fields: instead one must read it as a functional differential equation that determines the functional form of the classical action $`S`$.

Given a solution to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, we can compute the radial derivatives of $`\varphi ^I`$ and $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ from the standard Hamiltonian equation of motion $`\dot{q}=H/p`$. Using (28) we obtain

$$\frac{\varphi ^I}{r}=G^{IJ}\pi _J,\frac{g_{\mu \nu }}{r}=2\pi _{\mu \nu }+\frac{2}{3}\pi _\lambda ^\lambda g_{\mu \nu },$$
(34)
which together with (31) expresses the radial derivatives purely in terms of $`S`$.

## 5 The holographic renormalization group

In the discussion of the AdS/CFT correspondence, we saw that in order to compute correlation functions, we had to compute the supergravity action at a finite value of $`r_0`$, and subtract divergences that arise as $`r_0\mathrm{}`$. These divergent terms are local expressions (exactly as it happens in renormalizable field theories), and the effective action of the gauge theory, which we will denote by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, differs from $`S`$ by these local, divergent terms. This motivates the decomposition

$$S[\varphi ,g]=S_{\mathrm{loc}}[\varphi ,g]+\mathrm{\Gamma }[\varphi ,g].$$
(35)
For the local part we will take

$$S_{\mathrm{loc}}[\varphi ,g]=\sqrt{g}\left(U\left(\varphi \right)+\mathrm{\Phi }\left(\varphi \right)R+\frac{1}{2}^\mu \varphi ^IM_{IJ}\left(\varphi \right)_\mu \varphi ^J\right),$$
(36)
where $`U`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`M_{IJ}`$ are local functions of the couplings, while $`\mathrm{\Gamma }[\varphi ,g]`$ contains all higher derivative and non-local terms. If $`S`$ would have a good low-energy local derivative expansion, we could simply define $`S_{\mathrm{loc}}`$ as the first two terms in this expansion. However, in general $`S`$ will be nonlocal. To define (35) properly, we need to use a scaling procedure. Naively, one could look at how things scale under rescalings of the metric, but again, because $`S`$ is nonlocal, this will not work properly. The right thing to do is to assign degree $`+2`$ to $`g_{\mu \nu }`$, and degree $`\mathrm{\Delta }_I4`$ to $`\varphi ^I`$. This is motivated by (12). We now define $`S_{\mathrm{loc}}`$ to be a local term that contains at least the complete part of $`S`$ that has degree larger than zero. There is an ambiguity in (35) that amounts to moving terms with zero and negative degree between $`S_{\mathrm{loc}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. However, the Hamilton-Jacobi theory will provide us with a nice way to choose an appropriate set of local terms in $`S_{\mathrm{loc}}`$, and the terms with positive degree are fixed unambiguously in this way. The whole procedure only makes sense for marginal and relevant perturbations. For irrelevant perturbations there can be terms of arbitrary positive degree.

The crucial point in doing the decomposition (35) is that the part of $`S`$ of positive degree is purely local. It is not a priori clear that this will be so in full generality. However, on spaces that are asymptotically $`AdS`$, once one is sufficiently close to the boundary, one can explicitly study solutions to the equations of motion and verify that this is indeed the case. Thus, for the applications that we have in mind, (35) is certainly true, but it would be interesting to have a more complete understanding of this issue.

In dimensions different from five, one can make expansions similar to (35). In $`d`$ dimensions, one should put all local terms with up to $`d2`$ derivatives in $`S_{\mathrm{loc}}`$. The equations that follow will get more complicated as the number of dimensions increases, but conceptually the strategy will be identical to the one we will follow here.

If the space is asymptotically AdS, then when we approach the boundary, the local potential term will contain quartic divergences, while the other local terms are quadratically divergent. In fact, even $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ contains divergences of a logarithmic type. We further note that the local action $`S_{\mathrm{loc}}`$ is similar in structure as the lagrangian term $``$ in the Hamilton constraint (33). In fact, as we will see, the different terms in $`S_{\mathrm{loc}}`$ have a direct relation with the corresponding terms in $``$.

The idea of the following calculations will be to insert the expansion (35) into the Hamilton constraint (28), combine the contributions on the left hand side that have the scaling degree as the terms on the right hand side, and require them to cancel. For this purpose, we define

$`S_{\mathrm{loc}}^{\left(0\right)}[\varphi ,g]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \sqrt{g}U\left(\varphi \right)}`$
$`S_{\mathrm{loc}}^{\left(2\right)}[\varphi ,g]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \sqrt{g}\left(\mathrm{\Phi }\left(\varphi \right)R+\frac{1}{2}^\mu \varphi ^IM_{IJ}\left(\varphi \right)_\mu \varphi ^J\right)}`$
$`^{\left(0\right)}(\varphi ,g)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{g}V\left(\varphi \right)`$
$`^{\left(2\right)}(\varphi ,g)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{g}\left(R+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}^\mu \varphi ^IG_{IJ}\left(\varphi \right)_\mu \varphi ^J\right).`$ (37)
The Hamilton-Jacobi equations can be written in the form

$$\{S,S\}+^{\left(0\right)}+^{\left(2\right)}=0$$
(38)
where we define the bracket $`\{S,S\}`$ through

$$\{S,S\}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}\left(\frac{1}{3}\left(g^{\mu \nu }\frac{\delta S}{\delta g^{\mu \nu }}\right)^2g^{\mu \lambda }g^{\nu \rho }\frac{\delta S}{\delta g^{\mu \nu }}\frac{\delta S}{\delta g^{\lambda \rho }}\frac{1}{2}G^{IJ}\frac{\delta S}{\delta \varphi ^I}\frac{\delta S}{\delta \varphi ^J}\right).$$
(39)
If we expand (38) in scaling degree, as explained above, we get various equations, the first three of which we list below:

$`\{S_{\mathrm{loc}}^{\left(0\right)},S_{\mathrm{loc}}^{\left(0\right)}\}`$ $`=`$ $`^{\left(0\right)}`$ (40)
$`2\{S_{\mathrm{loc}}^{\left(0\right)},S_{\mathrm{loc}}^{\left(2\right)}\}`$ $`=`$ $`^{\left(2\right)}`$ (41)
$`2\{S_{\mathrm{loc}}^{\left(4\right)},\mathrm{\Gamma }\}+\{S_{\mathrm{loc}}^{\left(2\right)},S_{\mathrm{loc}}^{\left(2\right)}\}`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (42)
These equations are not strictly speaking necessary, since e.g. $`S^{\left(0\right)}`$ can also contain terms of scaling weight $`0`$. This corresponds to an ambiguity in (35), because such terms can be shifted between $`S^{\left(0\right)}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. Our point of view will be to impose the equations (40), (41) and (42) also for those terms, and to thereby fix most of the ambiguity in the decomposition (35). The results we get show that this is a very natural thing to do.

Let us first look at the first of these equations, (40). Collecting the various terms yields the identity

$$V=\frac{1}{3}U^2\frac{1}{2}_IUG^{IJ}_JU.$$
(43)
Up to some trivial rescalings, this is the same relation we found in (17). Thus, from this simple bosonic analysis we recover the usual relation between the scalar potential and super potential of supergravity. The first order equations that solved (18) are also easily obtained. They read

$$\dot{\varphi }^I=G^{IJ}_JU,\dot{g}_{\mu \nu }=\frac{1}{3}U\left(\varphi \right)g_{\mu \nu },$$
(44)
and are obtained from (34) in the case where we consider Poincaré invariant solutions of the supergravity system only. For such solutions, $`SS_{\mathrm{loc}}^{\left(0\right)}`$ and (40) is the only nontrivial equation. We thus completely recover all the information about the simple flow disussed around (18) directly from the Hamilton-Jacobi equation.

The flow equations (44) can be solved with the ansatz

$$g_{\mu \nu }=a^2\widehat{g}_{\mu \nu },$$
(45)
where $`\widehat{g}_{\mu \nu }`$ is independent of $`r`$ and the prefactor $`a`$ satisfies

$$\dot{a}=\frac{1}{6}U\left(\varphi \right)a.$$
(46)
Since the parameter $`a`$ in fact determines the physical scale (as is also clear from our previous discussion the AdS/CFT correspondence), we now replace the $`r`$ derivatives in the flow equations by derivatives with respect to $`a`$, by using the relation (46). In this way we obtain

$$a\frac{d}{da}\varphi ^I=\beta ^I\left(\varphi \right)$$
(47)
where the beta-functions are defined by

$$\beta ^I\left(\varphi \right)=\frac{6}{U\left(\varphi \right)}G^{IJ}\left(\varphi \right)_JU\left(\varphi \right).$$
(48)
These beta-functions contain the scale dependence of the fields $`\varphi ^I`$. Near the AdS boundary

$$\beta ^I\left(\varphi \right)\left(\mathrm{\Delta }_I4\right)\varphi ^I+\mathrm{}.$$
(49)
As we will see shortly, these $`\beta `$-functions indeed play the role of $`\beta `$-functions in the renormalization group equations.

Notice that the solution of $`U`$ to (43) is not unique. For supersymmetric flows, we should identify $`U`$ with the superpotential, but in general this relation need not hold. To get an idea about the ambiguities in $`U`$, we can do perturbation theory around a critical point of $`V`$, which is also a critical point of $`U`$. For simplicity we go to a basis in which the metric $`G_{IJ}`$ is given by $`\delta _{IJ}`$, so that we can write the relation as

$$\frac{1}{3}U^2\frac{1}{2}\left(_IU\right)^2=V$$
(50)
One might wonder whether any potential $`V`$ can be written in this form. Our derivation of this relation did not assume any special properties of $`V`$, except the existence of a classical solution that can be extended from the boundary to the interior. This of course puts restrictions on the potential $`V`$, and apparently forces it to be of the supersymmetric form. Let us expand the 5-d potential in powers of $`\varphi ^I`$ as

$$V=12\frac{1}{2}m_I^2\varphi ^I\varphi ^I+g_{IJK}\varphi ^I\varphi ^J\varphi ^K\mathrm{}$$
(51)
where we used the freedom to shift the fields to remove a possible linear term in $`\varphi ^I`$. To obtain a solution to (50) for the 4-d potential, we first try a similar expansion.

$$U=6+\frac{1}{2}\lambda _I\varphi ^I\varphi ^I+\lambda _{IJK}\varphi ^I\varphi ^J\varphi ^K$$
(52)
Here we already fixed the constant term so that it matches with that of $`V`$. The beta-functions derived from this potential are

$$\beta ^I=\left(4\mathrm{\Delta }_I\right)\varphi ^Ic^I{}_{JK}{}^{}\varphi _{}^{J}\varphi ^K$$
(53)
where

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_I=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}\lambda _Ic_{IJK}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}\lambda _{IJK}$$
(54)
are the scaling dimensions and operator product coefficients of the operators $`O_I`$ corresponding to the couplings $`\varphi ^I`$. Inserting both expansions (51) and (52) in (50) then gives the relation

$$\lambda _I^24\lambda _I=m_I^2$$
(55)
which upon inserting the relation (54) is recognized as the standard relation (4) between the scale dimensions $`\mathrm{\Delta }_I`$ of the 4-d couplings and the corresponding masses $`m_I`$ of the 5-d fields  . Notice that this relation implies that the 5-d potential must in fact satisfy the unitarity bound $`m_I^24`$. If this inequality is violated, there are no bounded solutions that extend all the way to the asymptotic boundary. Interestingly, this is precisely the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound (5) for stability in AdS space. Thus, the existence of a perturbative solution immediately implies that the masses of the fields have to be consistent with an AdS solution. Existence of solutions is also known to be related to the stability of domain wall solutions of supergravity .

By looking at the next order in the $`\varphi ^I`$ expansion we obtain the relation

$$\left(\lambda _I+\lambda _J+\lambda _K4\lambda \right)\lambda _{IJK}=g_{IJK},$$
(56)
which via (54) expresses the operator product coefficients $`c_{IJK}`$ in terms of the cubic term in $`V`$. Note that this expression degenerates in the case that $`\mathrm{\Delta }_I+\mathrm{\Delta }_J+\mathrm{\Delta }_k=8`$. The interpretation of this will become clear when we look at deformations of $`U`$ that preserve the relation (50) with $`V`$.

An infinitesimal variation $`\delta U`$ preserves (50) if it satisfies the linear relation

$$4U\delta U6_IU_I\left(\delta U\right)=0,$$
(57)
or

$$\left(4+\beta ^I_I\right)\delta U=0.$$
(58)
These equations tell us that those terms in $`U`$ that have total dimension $`4`$ are not determined by the Hamilton-Jacobi constraint. It is interesting to note that these are precisely those terms that remain finite in the continuum limit. Therefore, it appears that the Hamilton-Jacobi relation only constrains the divergent terms of the potential $`U`$, but not the finite part. Precisely these terms survive as finite local terms in the boundary effective action.

Besides such continuous ambiguities, there are also discrete ambiguities in $`U`$. For example, $`\lambda _I`$ can be either $`\mathrm{\Delta }_I`$ or $`4\mathrm{\Delta }_I`$. In case the space is asymptotic AdS, the boundary conditions in the IR will tell us that the right solution is $`4\mathrm{\Delta }_I`$, but in more general situations more general $`U`$ can appear. We should also point out that some flows to non-susy fixed points can have $`U`$ non-analytic at $`\varphi =0`$, in which case the above perturbative expansion does not apply .

Another potential worry is that some of the flows under consideration describe a flow to a Coulomb branch of the gauge theory, i.e. a flow with $`𝒪0`$. To analyze whether one is really computing correlation functions in the vacuum state or not requires a careful study of the subleading behavior of the fields as $`r\mathrm{}`$.

As an extension of these methods, one can also study the behavior of correlation functions along flows. This has been done in e.g.  and yields quite reasonable results.

We proceed by investigating equation (41) . This equation implies

$`\beta ^K_K\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`2\mathrm{\Phi }+{\displaystyle \frac{6}{U}}`$
$`2M_{IJ}+{\displaystyle \frac{6}{U}}G_{IJ}`$ $`=`$ $`12_I_J\mathrm{\Phi }+\beta ^K_KM_{IJ}\beta ^K_IM_{KJ}\beta ^K_JM_{IK}`$
$`\beta ^I`$ $`=`$ $`6M^{IJ}_J\mathrm{\Phi }.`$ (59)
In most studies of the AdS/CFT correspondence, the local terms of the boundary effective action are considered to be non-universal, since they diverge as we take the limit $`r\mathrm{}`$. Here we see, however, that they contain very important information about the flow of the couplings constants, and even conspire in an interesting way to make up the lagrangian term $``$ of the 5-d gravity theory.

## 6 Callan-Symanzik equation

As we explained in our discussion of the AdS/CFT correspondence, the functional $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ contains all the information about the correlation functions of the theory via the identity

$$𝒪_{I_1}\left(x_1\right)\mathrm{}𝒪_{I_n}\left(x_n\right)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}\frac{\delta }{\delta \varphi ^{I_1}\left(x_1\right)}\mathrm{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}\frac{\delta }{\delta \varphi ^{I_n}\left(x_n\right)}\mathrm{\Gamma }[\varphi ,g].$$
(60)
The Callan-Symanzik equation can be derived, using (60), from the last equation we wrote in (42). That equation implies

$$\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}\left(2g^{\mu \nu }\frac{\delta }{\delta g^{\mu \nu }}\beta ^I\left(\varphi \right)\frac{\delta }{\delta \varphi ^I}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }[\varphi ,g]=\text{4-derivative terms}$$
(61)
In order to derive the Callan-Symanzik equations for expectation values of local operators we vary this relation with respect to fields $`\varphi ^I`$ as in (60). After doing the variations, the fields are put to their constant average value given by the couplings of the gauge theory. We further take the metric to be of the form $`g_{\mu \nu }=a^2\eta _{\mu \nu }`$, where $`a`$ is $`x^\mu `$-independent. The 4-derivative terms will drop out after this step, and play no role as long as one considers operators $`𝒪_I`$ at different points in space. Finally, we integrate the resulting expression over all of space and replace the functional derivatives by ordinary derivatives by using the definitions

$$2g^{\mu \nu }\frac{\delta }{\delta g^{\mu \nu }}=a\frac{}{a},\frac{\delta }{\delta \varphi ^I}=\frac{}{\varphi ^I}$$
(62)
In this way one derives after some straightforward algebra from (61) the standard form of the Callan-Symanzik equations

$$(a\frac{}{a}+\beta ^I_I)𝒪_{I_1}\left(x_1\right)\mathrm{}𝒪_{I_n}\left(x_n\right)+\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\gamma {}_{I_i}{}^{}^{J_i}𝒪_{I_1}\left(x_1\right)..𝒪_{J_i}\left(x_i\right)..𝒪_{I_n}\left(x_n\right)=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}$$
(63)
where

$$\gamma {}_{I}{}^{}^J=_I\beta ^J$$
(64)
represent the anomalous scaling dimensions of the operators $`𝒪_I`$. By an appropriate choice of contact term, the ordinary $`\varphi ^I`$ derivative is turned in a covariant derivative $`_I`$ that is defined in terms of the metric $`G_{IJ}`$. This ensure that the whole formalism stays covariant under field redefinitions. .

The Callan-Symanzik equation (63) is derived still with a finite cut-off. To remove the cutoff, we need to take $`r\mathrm{}`$. A practical way to describe this limit is to write the metric and the couplings as

$$g_{\mu \nu }=ϵ^2g_{\mu \nu }^_\mathrm{R}$$
(65)
and

$$\varphi ^I=\varphi ^I(\varphi __\mathrm{R},ϵ)$$
(66)
where $`g_{\mu \nu }^R`$ and $`\varphi __\mathrm{R}^I`$ are the renormalized metric and couplings which are kept fixed as we send $`ϵ0`$. The relation between the bare couplings $`\varphi ^I`$ and the renormalized couplings $`\varphi __\mathrm{R}^I`$ is obtained by integrating the RG-flow

$$ϵ\frac{\varphi ^I}{ϵ}=\beta ^I\left(\varphi \right)\varphi ^I=\varphi __\mathrm{R}^I\text{at}ϵ=1$$
(67)
Form the supergravity perspective, this procedure for introducing the renormalized couplings means the following. Consider the unique classical supergravity trajectory with asymptotic boundary conditions specified by the ‘bare’ fields $`(\varphi ^I,g)`$. The renormalized fields $`(\varphi __\mathrm{R}^I,g__\mathrm{R})`$ then represent the values of the scalar field on this trajectory at some finite value of the scale factor, corresponding to some fixed RG scale. As we consider only relevant perturbations, the couplings $`\varphi ^I`$ will actually go to zero as $`ϵ^{4\mathrm{\Delta }_I}`$, as we take the limit $`ϵ0`$ while keeping $`\varphi __\mathrm{R}`$ fixed. The metric $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ on the other hand diverges. Hence we still find, upon inserting the expressions (65) and (66) into the action $`S`$, that the various terms contained in $`S_{\mathrm{loc}}`$ diverge in the limit $`ϵ0`$. For example, the potential term $`U`$ will in general be quartically divergent, while $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`M_{IJ}`$ contain at most quadratic divergences. Even the term $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ has a potential logarithmic divergence that has to be removed in the renormalization procedure. This can be done by adding appropriate counterterms. The renormalized effective action $`\mathrm{\Gamma }__\mathrm{R}`$ is defined by

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }__\mathrm{R}[\varphi __\mathrm{R},g__\mathrm{R}]=\underset{ϵ0}{lim}\mathrm{\Gamma }{}_{\mathrm{finite}}{}^{}[\varphi (\varphi __\mathrm{R},ϵ),ϵ^2g__\mathrm{R}]$$
(68)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{finite}}`$ is obtained from $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ by subtracting its divergent part.

We now would like to show that the action $`\mathrm{\Gamma }__\mathrm{R}`$ again satisfies a similar Callan-Symanzik equation as before, but now expressed in terms of the renormalized couplings and metric

$$\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}\left(2g__\mathrm{R}^{\mu \nu }\frac{\delta }{\delta g__\mathrm{R}^{\mu \nu }}\beta __\mathrm{R}^I\left(\varphi __\mathrm{R}^I\right)\frac{\delta }{\delta \varphi __\mathrm{R}^I}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }__\mathrm{R}[\varphi __\mathrm{R},g__\mathrm{R}]=\text{local terms}$$
(69)
The derivation of this relation is basically a change of variables from $`\varphi ^I`$ to $`\varphi __\mathrm{R}^I`$. Beta functions are vector fields in the space of couplings, and therefore we have

$$\beta ^I\frac{\delta }{\delta \varphi ^I}=\beta __\mathrm{R}^I\frac{\delta }{\delta \varphi __\mathrm{R}^I}$$
(70)
If we substitute this and also the following definition of the renormalized operators

$$𝒪_I^^\mathrm{R}=𝒪_J\frac{\varphi ^J}{\varphi __\mathrm{R}^I}$$
(71)
it is straightforward to recover the Callan-Symanzik equations for all renormalized $`n`$-point functions:

$$(a\frac{}{a}+\beta __\mathrm{R}^I_I)𝒪_{I_1}^^\mathrm{R}\left(x_1\right)\mathrm{}𝒪_{I_n}^^\mathrm{R}\left(x_n\right)+\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\left(\gamma __\mathrm{R}\right){}_{I_i}{}^{}^{J_i}𝒪_{I_1}^^\mathrm{R}\left(x_1\right)..𝒪_{J_i}^^\mathrm{R}\left(x_i\right)..𝒪_{I_n}^^\mathrm{R}\left(x_n\right)=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.$$
(72)
## 7 Conformal anomaly

In order to recover the conformal anomaly, let us relax the condition that the metric is flat, and use the constraint (28) to compute an expression for the trace of the finite part of the expectation value of the stress tensor:

$$T_{\mu \nu }=\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}\frac{\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }}{\delta g^{\mu \nu }}$$
(73)
The calculation is again similar as outlined above. We find that the trace anomaly takes form

$$2T=\beta ^I_I\mathrm{\Gamma }+cR^{\mu \nu }R_{\mu \nu }+dR^2$$
(74)
where $`T=T_\mu ^\mu `$, and the curvature squared terms simply arise due to the square of the Einstein term in the action $`S_{\mathrm{loc}}`$. We recognize this equation as a standard type expression as dictated by the broken scale invariance of the effective action $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the trace anomaly relation. The coefficients $`c`$ and $`d`$ are given in terms of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ by

$$c=\frac{6\mathrm{\Phi }^2}{U},d=\frac{2}{U}\left(\mathrm{\Phi }^2\frac{3}{2}_I\mathrm{\Phi }G^{IJ}_J\mathrm{\Phi }\right).$$
(75)
We can perform a quantitative check on these coefficients, by going to the fixed point situation, where all $`_I`$ derivative vanish. A simple calculation shows we can then express $`c`$ and $`d`$ in terms of the 5-d potential term $`V`$ as $`c=3d=\left(V/3\right)^{3/2}`$, which reproduces the expression of the holographic Weyl anomaly obtained in . Inclusion of the scalars also leads to good agreement with known results . In addition, there are some harmless ambiguities in the conformal anomaly obtained in this way . The function $`c`$ is the analogue of the central charge of the 4-d QFT, and has been proposed as a candidate $`C`$-function in  and .

## 8 Cosmological constant problem

In  techniques similar to the ones described here were used to shed some new light on the cosmological constant problem. The idea is to view a compactification of string theory also from a holographic point of view, in which physics at a particular energy scale in our world should be viewed as taking place somewhere along an extra coordinate, the analogue of the radial coordinate $`r`$. This coordinate indicates the energy scale. Consider some compactification of string theory, which typically can be warped, and slice it in two at some value $`r=r_0`$. The region $`r<r_0`$ represents the IR physics, the region $`r>r_0`$ the UV physics. Given values of the 4d fields on this slice, their effective action is given by the sum of the IR and UV effective actions,

$$S_{\mathrm{tot}}=S_{\mathrm{IR}}[\varphi ,g]+S_{\mathrm{UV}}[\varphi ,g]$$
(76)
where both $`S_{\mathrm{IR}}`$ and $`S_{\mathrm{UV}}`$ satisfy the Hamilton-Jacobi equation. In addition, the complete solution should be smooth, so derivatives should not jump at the location of the slice. This implies that

$$\frac{S_{\mathrm{tot}}}{\varphi }=\frac{S_{\mathrm{tot}}}{g}=0.$$
(77)
The argument of  roughly boils down to the following. The total action $`S_{\mathrm{tot}}`$ is invariant under moving the slice along the equations of motion. Therefore, the total vacuum energy, once it is zero at some energy scale (e.g. because of supersymmetry) will remain zero at other energy scales. As we move the slice around, the vacuum energy obtained from integrating out degrees of freedom is apparently canceled by the kinetic energy in the warp factor. As further evidence, note that we can in particular choose flat slices, so that the effective cosmological constant on the brane appears to be zero.

Some comments are in order.
-One has to careful in studying warped compactifications this way, it would be better to treat the whole warped compactification all at once.
-if one wants to break supersymmetry dynamically in such a scenario, one presumably needs strong coupling physics and it is not clear that this classical analysis will still be valid.
-if supersymmetry is explicitly broken, one will encounter explicit sources at some energy scale, and it is not obvious that such arguments go through.
-the total action is invariant under renormalization group flow. Usually, an argument of Weinberg  then states that the dependence of the low-energy effective action on some fields is trivial, and this cannot be used to argue that the cosmological constant is zero. The present case could avoid this argument if the low-energy theory is non-local (all the way down to zero energy). Such non-localities seem unavoidable if one wants to be able to slice the space in an arbitrary way. Perhaps there are distinguished slicings where the nonlocality vanishes, which could be a criterion that could help determine precisely which four-dimensional metric the four-dimensional observer will see in such compactifications.

## 9 Brane world scenarios

The techniques described here are also very convenient if one wants to study brane world scenarios, like the Randall-Sundrum scenario . For example, if we consider spaces with a boundary, we are actually interested in the full action $`S`$ and not just in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. On such spaces, the graviton wave function is normalizable, and therefore they are dual to field theories coupled to gravity, as described by $`S`$. The effective action was found to be given by

$$S[\varphi ,g]=\mathrm{\Gamma }[\varphi ,g]+\sqrt{g}\left(U\left(\varphi \right)+\mathrm{\Phi }\left(\varphi \right)R+\frac{1}{2}^\mu \varphi ^IM_{IJ}\left(\varphi \right)_\mu \varphi ^J\right).$$
(78)
In (59) we gave equations for the couplings that appear in this expression. Thus we obtain a lot of information about the potential $`V`$ and the effective four-dimensional Newton constant $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ from the Hamilton-Jacobi equations. For AdS-like spaces that are bounded by a brane, the full action on the brane will be the sum of the brane action and the action (78).

As another example, we consider a simple model for a vanishing cosmological constant without fine tuning that was described in . The theory consists of five dimensional gravity, with zero potential and a single scalar. At $`r=0`$ there is a four-dimensional brane which represents our world, with tension $`T\left(\varphi \right)`$. For the metric we take a Poincaré invariant metric

$$ds^2=dr^2+e^{2A\left(r\right)}\eta _{ij}dx^idx^j.$$
(79)
We impose a boundary condition $`A`$, $`\varphi `$ on the brane. The total action is the effective action coming from the region $`r<0`$, the brane tension, and the effective action coming from $`r>0`$. Both effective actions are of the form $`\sqrt{g}U\left(\varphi \right)`$, and $`U`$ satisfies the equation (43), i.e.

$$\frac{1}{3}U^2\frac{1}{2}U^2=0.$$
(80)
The general solution for $`U`$ is therefore

$$U=ce^{\pm \sqrt{\frac{2}{3}}\varphi }.$$
(81)
From the region $`r<0`$ we get one function $`U_L`$, from the region $`r>0`$ we get another function $`U_R`$. Hence, the total action reads

$$S_{\mathrm{tot}}=\sqrt{g}\left(U_L\left(\varphi \right)+T\left(\varphi \right)+U_R\left(\varphi \right)\right).$$
(82)
We still have to impose the equations of motion for $`S_{\mathrm{tot}}`$. That yields (where $`\varphi _0`$ is the value of $`\varphi `$ on the brane)

$`U_L\left(\varphi _0\right)+T\left(\varphi _0\right)+U_R\left(\varphi _0\right)`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (83)
$`U_L^{}\left(\varphi _0\right)+T^{}\left(\varphi _0\right)+U_R^{}\left(\varphi _0\right)`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (84)
These equations guarantee that the derivatives of fields have the right jumps over the brane, also known as the Israel junction conditions. Here they arise as a very simple consequence of the equations of motion.

Altogether we have two equations for three unknowns $`c_L,c_R,\varphi _0`$, and there is always a solution. This seems suggestive of a theory with a vanishing cosmological constant without fine tuning. However, these solutions are always singular, and without a good interpretation of the singularities, or a good description of the boundary conditions at the singularity, it is not clear how serious one should take these models. For a recent discussion, see .

## 10 Conclusions

The holographic renormalization group, and the techniques described here, are very useful tools in studying various aspects of the AdS/CFT correspondence, brane world scenarios, etc. We conclude with some questions and comments.

* The renormalization group we get is a local renormalization group, i.e. the scale of the theory is space-time dependent. Is there a physical meaning to such scales? Since the metric is an observable, does that mean that the observed metric and the metric as it appears in the action do not necessarily have to match each other?
* We have restricted our attention to the metric and scalar fields only. It is also possible to include higher form fields and fermions in the discussion, see . For fermions some additional subtleties arise because one cannot choose arbitrary boundary conditions.
* We have not discussed the boundary conditions in the IR so far. The Hamilton-Jacobi equations do not completely determine the effective action $`S`$. The freedom in $`S`$ that remains is related to the boundary conditions in the IR. In the case of the Euclidean AdS/CFT correspondence, we have in mind that the space is topologically a five-ball, and the IR boundary condition is such that the fields have a smooth extension over the interior of the ball. This in principle completely determines the effective action $`S`$. It would be very interesting to know how other boundary conditions in the IR are reflected in the choice of $`S`$, especially for confining theories like .
* Generically, one expects that solutions of the equations of motion are such that a singularity arises at some finite value of $`r`$. Criteria for admissable singularities have been discussed in , and it is an interesting question whether there is a relation between admissable singularities and the behavior of $`S`$. Perhaps the existence of local counterterms that remove the divergences will get a natural interpretation in this context.
* So far, the entire discussion has been purely classical. It is difficult to study quantum corrections, because this requires us to study the full quantum mechanical equation (23). In this context this equation is known as the Wheeler-de Witt equation. It is ill-defined as it stands and needs to be regulated. One thing one can do is to apply it to a subset of theories, e.g. to the set of Poincaré invariant solutions . We already saw that the theory reduces to quantum mechanics, and the Wheeler-de Witt equation to an ordinary Schrödinger equation. Similar approximations in the case of quantum gravity are called minisuperspace approximations. One can apply this approximation to study the quantum stability of some of the brane-world scenario’s, but the validity of such approximations is questionable, since they are not the leading terms in some systematic expansion. Still, one finds surprisingly enough that the simple model discussed in the previous section not only solves the classical Hamilton-Jacobi equation, but also the full Wheeler-de Witt equation in the minisuperspace approximation. It remains to be seen whether this has any deeper meaning.
* An issue raised before is whether there are always local counterterms that remove the leading singularities from the expansion, or whether in different circumstances there can be more exotic nonlocal behavior of $`S`$. This would have important consequences for the cosmological constant problem, and the analysis of warped compactifications in general. The application of the techniques in this paper to more general warped compactifications has not been fully explored, and it would be interesting to do so. For a discussion of warped compactifications related to the present discussion see .
* Since the flows we consider here have a dual interpretation as a renormalization group flow on the string world-sheet, one wonders whether these techniques are useful to study more general renormalization group flows in string theory, and perhaps have applications to issues like tachyon condensation.
* The Hamilton-Jacobi equations and their quantum extensions look very similar to Polchinski’s version of the exact renormalization group , for a discussion see . One can also derive the renormalization group directly from the renormalization of the string world-sheet theory . On the other hand, the renormalization of string theory is also closely connected to Polchinki’s exact renormalization group and the Batalin-Vilkovisky structure of string field theory . Ultimately, one would like to understand all these connections in detail and to provide a detailed derivation of the renormalization group flow directly from string field theory.