Spacetime dilaton in AdS3 × X holography

A bstract We study the spectrum generating operators (DDF operators) for bosonic strings and superstrings in AdS 3 × X with pure, generic NSNS flux. The dual CFT is conjectured to be a deformed symmetric orbifold of $$ {\mathbb{R}}_{\overset{\sim }{Q}}\times X $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>ℝ</mml:mi> <mml:mover> <mml:mi>Q</mml:mi> <mml:mo>~</mml:mo> </mml:mover> </mml:msub> <mml:mo>×</mml:mo> <mml:mi>X</mml:mi> </mml:math> , where $$ {\mathbb{R}}_{\overset{\sim }{Q}} $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>ℝ</mml:mi> <mml:mover> <mml:mi>Q</mml:mi> <mml:mo>~</mml:mo> </mml:mover> </mml:msub> </mml:math> denotes a linear dilaton theory with slope $$ \overset{\sim }{Q} $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mover> <mml:mi>Q</mml:mi> <mml:mo>~</mml:mo> </mml:mover> </mml:math> . In this paper, we construct DDF operators corresponding to the spacetime linear dilaton field in the limit where the worldsheet theory becomes free. The DDF operator gives another evidence supporting the proposed dual CFT. Furthermore, the DDF operator is constructed purely from the AdS 3 fields and thus, strongly implies the existence of $$ {\mathbb{R}}_{\overset{\sim }{Q}} $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>ℝ</mml:mi> <mml:mover> <mml:mi>Q</mml:mi> <mml:mo>~</mml:mo> </mml:mover> </mml:msub> </mml:math> for generic X that defines a consistent background.