Applications of AdS/CFT Duality to QCD

Even though quantum chromodynamics is a broken conformal theory, the AdS/CFT correspondence has led to important insights into the properties of QCD. For example, as shown by Polchinski and Strassler, dimensional counting rules for the power-law falloff of hadron scattering amplitudes follow from dual holographic models with conformal behavior at short distances and confinement at large distances. We find that one also obtains a remarkable representation of the entire light-quark meson and baryon spectrum, including all orbital excitations, based on only one mass parameter. We also show how hadron light-front wavefunctions and hadron form factors in both the space-like and time-like regions can be predicted.