Open Strings from N=4 Super Yang-Mills

Exploiting insights on strings moving in pp-wave backgrounds, we show how open strings emerge from N = 4 SU(M) Yang-Mills theory as fluctuations around certain states carrying R-charge of order M. These states are dual to spherical D3-branes of AdS_5 x S^5 and we reproduce the spectrum of small fluctuations of these states from Yang Mills theory. When G such D3-branes coincide, the expected G^2 light degrees of freedom emerge. The open strings running between the branes can be quantized easily in a Penrose limit of the spacetime. Taking the corresponding large charge limit of the Yang-Mills theory, we reproduce the open string worldsheets and their spectra from field theory degrees of freedom.