Holographic RG flow triggered by a classically marginal operator

Abstract

We study a holographic renormalization group (RG) flow triggered by a classically marginal operator. When a marginal operator deforms a conformal field theory, it does not yield a nontrivial RG flow at the classical level. At the quantum level, however, quantum corrections modify a marginal operator into one of the truly marginal, marginally relevant, and marginally irrelevant operators. This quantum correction may generate a nontrivial RG flow. We investigate how we can describe such an RG flow holographically with quantum corrections. Applying the holographic technique, we look into the change of physical quantities, like a coupling constant and vacuum expectation value, along the RG flow. We also study the holographic description of the trace anomaly caused by the gluon condensation.