Pion Form Factor in Improved Holographic QCD Backgrounds

We extend a recent numerical calculation of the pion electromagnetic form factor F_\pi (Q^2) in holographic QCD to study two important issues regarding the behavior of fields in the bulk. First, we show that using a chiral symmetry-breaking field formally satisfying the boundary conditions of the ``soft-wall'' model changes numerical results very little from the earlier calculation that ignores these constraints. Second, we use a background field that interpolates between ``hard-wall'' and ``soft-wall'' models to obtain an improved model that reproduces the desirable phenomenological features of both. In all cases, F_\pi$ for large Q^2 is shallower than data, an effect that can be cured by relaxing the fit to one of the static observables, particularly the decay constant f_\pi.