arXiv subjects

Constantin Bachas

Publications and source records attributed to Constantin Bachas.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Invariant tensions from holography

We revisit the problem of defining an invariant notion of tension in gravity. For spacetimes whose asymptotics are those of a Defect CFT we propose two independent definitions : Gravitational tension given by the one-point function of the dilatation current, and inertial tension, or stiffness, given by the norm of the displacement operator. We show that both reduce to the tension of the Nambu-Goto action in the limit of classical thin probe branes. Subtle normalisations of the relevant Witten diagrams are fixed by the Weyl and diffeomorphism Ward identities of the boundary DCFT. The gravitational tension is not defined for domain walls, whereas stiffness is not defined for point particles. When they both exist these two tensions are in general different, but the examples of line and surface BPS defects in $d=4$ show that superconformal invariance can identify them.

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arXiv2025

An unusual BPS equation

We prove a conjectured relation between the energy-momentum and the displacement norm of superconformal defects. The proof completes earlier results, and shows that supersymmetry identifies two natural notions of brane tension in Anti-de Sitter gravity. As a byproduct we show that a modification of the energy-momentum tensor that removes the stress of static superconformal defects, ensures also that the radiation these emit obeys the Null Energy Condition. This sheds new light on the radiation-reaction problem for moving charges.

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arXiv2024

D-branes

This is an introduction to the non-perturbative excitations of string theory known as D-branes. Topics covered include their definition and main properties, their role in dualities and their dynamics. Based on lectures given at LACES 2019, and at the Amsterdam-Brussels-Geneva-Paris Doctoral School.

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arXiv2023

Energy Transport for Thick Holographic Branes

Universal properties of two-dimensional conformal interfaces are encoded by the flux of energy transmitted and reflected during a scattering process. We develop an innovative method that allows us to use results for the energy transmission in thin-brane holographic models to find the energy transmission for general smooth domain-wall solutions of three-dimensional gravity. Our method is based on treating the continuous geometry as a discrete set of branes. As an application, we compute the transmission coefficient of a Janus interface in terms of its deformation parameter.

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arXiv2021

Steady States of Holographic Interfaces

We find stationary thin-brane geometries that are dual to far-from-equilibrium steady states of two-dimensional holographic interfaces. The flow of heat at the boundary agrees with the result of CFT and the known energy-transport coefficients of the thin-brane model. We argue that by entangling outgoing excitations the interface produces coarse-grained entropy at a maximal rate, and point out similarities and differences with double-sided black funnels. The non-compact, non-Killing and far from-equilibrium event horizon of our solutions coincides with the local (apparent) horizon on the colder side, but lies behind it on the hotter side of the interface. We also show that the thermal conductivity of a pair of interfaces jumps at the Hawking-Page phase transition from a regime described by classical scatterers to a quantum regime in which heat flows unobstructed.

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arXiv2021

Phases of Holographic Interfaces

We compute the phase diagram of the simplest holographic bottom-up model of conformal interfaces. The model consists of a thin domain wall between three-dimensional Anti-de Sitter (AdS) vacua, anchored on a boundary circle. We distinguish five phases depending on the existence of a black hole, the intersection of its horizon with the wall, and the fate of inertial observers. We show that, like the Hawking-Page phase transition, the capture of the wall by the horizon is also a first order transition and comment on its field-theory interpretation. The static solutions of the domain-wall equations include gravitational avatars of the Faraday cage, black holes with negative specific heat, and an intriguing phenomenon of suspended vacuum bubbles corresponding to an exotic interface/anti-interface fusion. Part of our analysis overlaps with recent work by Simidzija and Van Raamsdonk but the interpretation is different.

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arXiv2020

Energy Reflection and Transmission at 2D Holographic Interfaces

Scattering from conformal interfaces in two dimensions is universal in that the flux of reflected and transmitted energy does not depend on the details of the initial state. In this letter, we present the first gravitational calculation of energy reflection and transmission coefficients for interfaces with thin-brane holographic duals. Our result for the reflection coefficient depends monotonically on the tension of the dual string anchored at the interface, and obeys the lower bound recently derived from the ANEC in conformal field theory. The B(oundary)CFT limit is recovered for infinite ratio of the central charges.

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arXiv2019

Marginal Deformations of 3d N=4 Linear Quiver Theories

We study superconformal deformations of the $T_ρ^{\hatρ}[SU(N)]$ theories of Gaiotto-Hanany-Witten, paying special attention to mixed-branch operators with both electrically- and magnetically-charged fields. We explain why all marginal ${\cal N}=2$ operators of an ${\cal N}=4$ CFT$_3$ can be extracted unambiguously from the superconformal index. Computing the index at the appropriate order we show that the mixed moduli in $T_ρ^{\hatρ}[SU(N)]$ theories are double-string operators transforming in the (Adjoint, Adjoint) representation of the electric and magnetic flavour groups, up to some overcounting for quivers with abelian gauge nodes. We comment on the holographic interpretation of the results, arguing in particular that gauged supergravities can capture the entire moduli space if, in addition to the (classical) parameters of the background solution, one takes also into account the (quantization) moduli of boundary conditions.

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arXiv2019

Massive AdS Supergravitons and Holography

I compare two holographic mechanisms giving to the graviton a parametrically-small supersymmetric mass $m_g$ in Anti-de Sitter spacetime. In the context of bi-metric gravity these mechanisms couple `weakly' two initially decoupled superconformal theories by: (i) turning on a double-trace deformation, or (ii) gauging a common global symmetry. Superconformal invariance restricts the number of Poincaré supercharges to $N_Q\leq 4$ for mechanism (i) and to $N_Q\leq 8$ for mechanism (ii), and the AdS dimension to $D\leq 5$. The putative effective supergravities are expected to break down in the $m_g\to 0$ limit at an intermediate scale between $ m_g$ and $m_{\rm Planck}$. In a recently-proposed microscopic embedding of mechanism (ii) in string theory I show that $m_g=0$ is at infinite distance in moduli space, and I relate the breakdown of the effective theory to the condensation of unprotected spin-2 excitations in the string-theoretic description of the `holographic bridge'. The phenomenon is invisible in the weakly-coupled CFT side. I conjecture that similar phenomena should be at work in all cases.

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arXiv2018

N=2 Moduli of AdS4 vacua: A fine-print study

We analyze the moduli spaces near N=4 supersymmetric AdS4 vacua of string theory by combining and comparing various approaches: (a) the known exact solutions of Type IIB string theory with localized 5-brane sourcees, (b) the holographically dual 3d quiver gauge theories; (c) gauged supergravity, and (d) the representations of the superconformal algebra Osp(4|4). Short multiplets containing the marginal N=2 deformations transform in the (2;0), (0;2) or (1;1) representations of the R-symmetry group SU(2)_H x SU(2)_C. The first two are classified by the chiral rings of the Higgs and Coulomb branches, while the latter contain mixed-branch operators. We identify the origin of these moduli in string theory, matching in particular the operators of the chiral rings with open strings on the magnetized 5-brane sources. Our results provide new evidence for the underlying holographic duality. The existence of a large number of bound-state moduli highlights the limitations of effective supergravity.

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arXiv2018

Massive Anti-de Sitter Gravity from String Theory

We study top-down embeddings of massive Anti-de Sitter (AdS) gravity in type-IIB string theory. The supergravity solutions have a AdS$_4$ fiber warped over a manifold M$_6$ whose shape resembles that of scottish bagpipes: The `bag' is a conventional AdS$_4$-compactification manifold, while the `pipes' are highly-curved semi-infinite Janus throats. Besides streamlining previous discussions of the problem, our main new result is a formula for the graviton mass which only depends on the effective gravitational coupling of the bag, and on the D3-brane charges and dilaton jumps of the Janus throats. We compare these embeddings to the Karch-Randall model and other bottom-up proposals for massive-AdS-gravity, and we comment on their holographic interpretation. This is a companion paper to [1], where some closely-related bimetric models with pure AdS$_5\times$S$^5$ throats were analyzed.

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arXiv2018

Quantum Gates to other Universes

We present a microscopic model of a bridge connecting two large Anti-de-Sitter Universes. The Universes admit a holographic description as three-dimensional ${\cal N}=4$ supersymmetric gauge theories based on large linear quivers, and the bridge is a small rank-$n$ gauge group that acts as a messenger. On the gravity side, the bridge is a piece of a highly-curved AdS$_5\times$S$_5$ throat carrying $n$ units of five-form flux. We derive a universal expression for the mixing of the two massless gravitons: $M^2 \simeq 3n^2 (κ_4^2 + κ_4^{\prime\,2})/16π^2$, where $M$ is the mass splitting of the gravitons, $κ_4^2, κ_4^{\prime\,2}$ are the effective gravitational couplings of the AdS$_4$ Universes, and $n$ is the quantized charge of the gate. This agrees with earlier results based on double-trace deformations, with the important difference that the effective coupling is here quantized. We argue that the apparent non-localities of holographic double-trace models are resolved by integrating-in the (scarce) degrees of freedom of the gate.

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arXiv2016

Boundary Weyl anomaly of $\mathcal{N}=(2,2)$ superconformal models

We calculate the trace and axial anomalies of $\mathcal{N}=(2,2)$ superconformal theories with exactly marginal deformations, on a surface with boundary. Extending recent work by Gomis et al, we derive the boundary contribution that captures the anomalous scale dependence of the one-point functions of exactly marginal operators. Integration of the bulk super-Weyl anomaly shows that the sphere partition function computes the Kähler potential $K(λ, \barλ)$ on the superconformal manifold. Likewise, our results confirm the conjecture that the partition function on the supersymmetric hemisphere computes the holomorphic central charge, $c^Ω(λ)$, associated with the boundary condition $Ω$. The boundary entropy, given by a ratio of hemispheres and sphere, is therefore fully determined by anomalies.

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arXiv2016

Band Structure in Yang-Mills Theories

We show how Yang-Mills theory on $S^3\times R$ can exhibit a spectrum with continuous bands if coupled either to a topological 3-form gauge field, or to a dynamical axion with heavy Peccei-Quinn scale. The basic mechanism consists in associating winding histories to a bosonic zero mode whose role is to convert a circle in configuration space into a helix. The zero mode is, respectively, the holonomy of the 3-form field or the axion momentum. In these models different theta sectors coexist but are not mixed by local operators. Our analysis sheds light on, and extends Seiberg's proposal for modifying the topological sums in quantum field theories. It refutes a recent claim that $B+L$ violation at LHC is unsuppressed.

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arXiv2014

M-theory Solutions Invariant under $D(2,1;γ) \oplus D(2,1;γ)$

We simplify and extend the construction of half-BPS solutions to 11-dimensional supergravity, with isometry superalgebra D(2,1;γ) \oplus D(2,1;γ). Their space-time has the form AdS_3 x S^3 x S^3 warped over a Riemann surface Σ. It describes near-horizon geometries of M2 branes ending on, or intersecting with, M5 branes along a common string. The general solution to the BPS equations is specified by a reduced set of data (γ, h, G), where γis the real parameter of the isometry superalgebra, and h and G are functions on Σwhose differential equations and regularity conditions depend only on the sign of γ. The magnitude of γenters only through the map of h, G onto the supergravity fields, thereby promoting all solutions into families parametrized by |γ|. By analyzing the regularity conditions for the supergravity fields, we prove two general theorems: (i) that the only solution with a 2-dimensional CFT dual is AdS_3 x S^3 x S^3 x R^2, modulo discrete identifications of the flat R^2, and (ii) that solutions with γ< 0 cannot have more than one asymptotic higher-dimensional AdS region. We classify the allowed singularities of h and G near the boundary of Σ, and identify four local solutions: asymptotic AdS_4/Z_2 or AdS_7' regions; highly-curved M5-branes; and a coordinate singularity called the "cap". By putting these "Lego" pieces together we recover all known global regular solutions with the above symmetry, including the self-dual strings on M5 for $γ< 0$, and the Janus solution for γ> 0, but now promoted to families parametrized by |γ|. We also construct exactly new regular solutions which are asymptotic to AdS_4/Z_2 for γ< 0, and conjecture that they are a different superconformal limit of the self-dual string.

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arXiv2011

Spin-2 spectrum of defect theories

We study spin-2 excitations in the background of the recently-discovered type-IIB solutions of D'Hoker et al. These are holographically-dual to defect conformal field theories, and they are also of interest in the context of the Karch-Randall proposal for a string-theory embedding of localized gravity. We first generalize an argument by Csaki et al to show that for any solution with four-dimensional anti-de Sitter, Poincare or de Sitter invariance the spin-2 excitations obey the massless scalar wave equation in ten dimensions. For the interface solutions at hand this reduces to a Laplace-Beltrami equation on a Riemann surface with disk topology, and in the simplest case of the supersymmetric Janus solution it further reduces to an ordinary differential equation known as Heun's equation. We solve this equation numerically, and exhibit the spectrum as a function of the dilaton-jump parameter $Δϕ$. In the limit of large $Δϕ$ a nearly-flat linear-dilaton dimension grows large, and the Janus geometry becomes effectively five-dimensional. We also discuss the difficulties of localizing four-dimensional gravity in the more general backgrounds with NS5-brane or D5-brane charge, which will be analyzed in detail in a companion paper.

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arXiv2008

On the Symmetries of Classical String Theory

I discuss some aspects of conformal defects and conformal interfaces in two spacetime dimensions. Special emphasis is placed on their role as spectrum-generating symmetries of classical string theory.

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arXiv2008

Comments on Orientifolds without Vector Structure

We revisit type I compactifications with a Spin(32)/Z2 gauge bundle that admits no vector structure. We elucidate the relation of this Z2 obstruction to discrete B-field flux and to 't Hooft flux and clarify some subtleties in the T-duality transformation to type IIA intersecting D-brane models. We reexamine the earliest 3-generation GUT model on magnetized D-branes and show its consistency when a discrete B-flux is switched on. We further generalize partially known results for toroidal models to type I compactifications without vector structure and their mirror dual type IIA orientifolds on genuine Calabi-Yau manifolds. We illustrate this by working out the example of the quintic in some detail.

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