Perturbed symmetric-product orbifold: first-order mixing and puzzles for integrability

Abstract We study the marginal deformation of the symmetric-product orbifold theory Sym which corresponds to introducing a small amount of Ramond–Ramond flux into the dual background. Already at first order in perturbation theory, the dimension of certain single-cycle operators is corrected, indicating that wrapping corrections from integrability must come into play earlier than expected. Our results provide a test for integrability computations from the mirror thermodynamic Bethe ansatz or Quantum Spectral Curve, akin to the computation of the Konishi anomalous dimension in supersymmetric Yang–Mills theory. We also discuss a flaw in the original derivation of the integrable structure of the perturbed orbifold. Together, these observations suggest that more needs to be done to correctly identify and exploit the integrable structure of the perturbed orbifold CFT.