String Duals of Two-Dimensional Yang-Mills Theory and Symmetric Product Orbifolds

We propose a bosonic string dual to large N chiral Yang-Mills theory in two dimensions at finite `t Hooft coupling. The worldsheet theory is a β-γ system deformed by a chiral Polchinski-Strominger term. We reproduce the partition function on a torus, cylinder three-point amplitudes, and the area law for Wilson loops. We also present candidate string duals to symmetric product orbifolds for general seed conformal field theories with c<24 and their TT[over ¯], JT[over ¯] deformations. The results hint at interrelations among confining, nonrelativistic, and matrix strings and AdS_{3}/CFT_{2}.