Abstract
Applying the AdS/CFT correspondence, the expansion of the heavy-quark potential of N = 4 supersymmetric Yang–Mills theory at large Nc is carried out to the next-leading term in the large 't Hooft coupling at zero temperature. The strong coupling corresponds to the semi-classical expansion of the string-sigma model, the gravity dual of the Wilson loop operator, with the next-leading term expressed in terms of functional determinants of fluctuations. The singularities of these determinants are examined and their contributions are evaluated numerically. We find the next-leading order correction is negative and suppressed by minus square root of the 't Hooft coupling relative to the leading order.