arXiv subjects

Joan Simon

Publications and source records attributed to Joan Simon.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2011

Brane Effective Actions, Kappa-Symmetry and Applications

This is a review on brane effective actions, their symmetries and some of its applications. Its first part uncovers the Green-Schwarz formulation of single M- and D-brane effective actions focusing on kinematical aspects : the identification of their degrees of freedom, the importance of world volume diffeomorphisms and kappa symmetry, to achieve manifest spacetime covariance and supersymmetry, and the explicit construction of such actions in arbitrary on-shell supergravity backgrounds. Its second part deals with applications. First, the use of kappa symmetry to determine supersymmetric world volume solitons. This includes their explicit construction in flat and curved backgrounds, their interpretation as BPS states carrying (topological) charges in the supersymmetry algebra and the connection between supersymmetry and hamiltonian BPS bounds. When available, I emphasise the use of these solitons as constituents in microscopic models of black holes. Second, the use of probe approximations to infer about non-trivial dynamics of strongly coupled gauge theories using the AdS/CFT correspondence. This includes expectation values of Wilson loop operators, spectrum information and the general use of D-brane probes to approximate the dynamics of systems with small number of degrees of freedom interacting with larger systems allowing a dual gravitational description. Its final part briefly discusses effective actions for N D-branes and M2-branes. This includes both SYM theories, their higher order corrections and partial results in covariantising these couplings to curved backgrounds, and the more recent supersymmetric Chern-Simons matter theories describing M2-branes using field theory, brane constructions and 3-algebra considerations.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Extremal black holes, Holography & Coarse graining

I review some of the concepts at the crossroads of gravitational thermodynamics, holography and quantum mechanics. First, the origin of gravitational thermodynamics due to coarse graining of quantum information is exemplified using the half-BPS sector of ${\cal N}=4$ SYM and its LLM description in type IIB supergravity. The notion of black holes as effective geometries, its relation to the fuzzball programme and some of the puzzles raising for large black holes are discussed. Second, I review recent progress for extremal black holes, both microscopically, discussing a constituent model for stationary extremal non-bps black holes, and semiclassically, discussing the extremal black hole/CFT conjecture. The latter is examined from the AdS${}_3$/CFT${}_2$ perspective. Third, I review the importance of the holographic principle to encode non-local gravity features allowing us to relate the gravitational physics of local observers with thermodynamics and the role causality plays in these arguments by identifying horizons (screens) as diathermic walls. I speculate with the emergence of an approximate CFT in the deep IR close to any horizon and its relation with an effective dynamical description of the degrees of freedom living on these holographic screens.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Near Horizon Limits of Massless BTZ and Their CFT Duals

We consider the massless BTZ black hole and show that it is possible to take its "near horizon" limit in two distinct ways. The first one leads to a null self-dual orbifold of AdS3 and the second to a spacelike singular AdS3/Z_K orbifold in the large K limit, the "pinching orbifold". We show that from the dual 2d CFT viewpoint, the null orbifold corresponds to the p^+=0 sector of the Discrete Light-Cone Quantisation (DLCQ) of the 2d CFT where a chiral sector of the CFT is decoupled, while the pinching orbifold corresponds to taking an infinite mass gap limit in both the right and left sectors of the 2d CFT, essentially leaving us with the states L_0=\bar L_0=c/24 only. In the latter case, one can combine the near horizon limit with sending the 3d Planck length l_P to zero, or equivalently the dual CFT central charge c to infinity. We provide preliminary evidence that in that case some nontrivial dynamics may survive the limit.

hep-th↗

arXiv2010

The electrostatic view on M-theory LLM geometries

We describe the geometry of the R x SO(3) x SO(6) x U(1) invariant half-BPS M-theory configurations considered in LLM in terms of their electrostatic variables. We discuss both regular configurations, such as AdS_4 x S^7 and AdS_7 x S^4 vacua or simple excited solutions, and singular ones such as the superstar geometries. This allows us to identify the appropriate boundary conditions describing the most general smooth and superstar-like singular configurations. We also compute their masses, matching the expected result from their microscopic interpretation, but now at finite radius of curvature.

hep-th↗

arXiv2009

What is a chiral 2d CFT? And what does it have to do with extremal black holes?

The near horizon limit of the extremal BTZ black hole is a``self-dual orbifold'' of AdS_3. This geometry has a null circle on its boundary, and thus the dual field theory is a Discrete Light Cone Quantized (DLCQ) two dimensional CFT. The same geometry can be compactified to two dimensions giving AdS_2 with a constant electric field. The kinematics of the DLCQ show that in a consistent quantum theory of gravity in these backgrounds there can be no dynamics in AdS_2, which is consistent with older ideas about instabilities in this space. We show how the necessary boundary conditions eliminating AdS_2 fluctuations can be implemented, leaving one copy of a Virasoro algebra as the asymptotic symmetry group. Our considerations clarify some aspects of the chiral CFTs appearing in proposed dual descriptions of the near-horizon degrees of freedom of extremal black holes.

hep-th↗

arXiv2009

Small Black holes vs horizonless solutions in AdS

It is argued that the appropriate macroscopic description of half-BPS mesonic chiral operators in generic $d=4$ ${\cal N}=1$ toric gauge theories is in terms of the geometric quantization of smooth horizonless configurations. The relevance of different ensemble macroscopic descriptions is emphasized : lorentzian vs euclidean configurations as (semiclassical) microstates vs saddle points in an euclidean path integral.

hep-th↗

arXiv2009

Deconstructing the D0-D6 system

We find the complete classical moduli space of two-centered supersymmetric solutions carrying D0 and D6 brane charge in the STU model delimited by walls of marginal stability of co-dimension one. U-duality guarantees our conclusions hold for any BPS state with negative quartic invariant. The analysis explicitly shows that the conditions of marginal stability, i.e. the integrability conditions, are generically insufficient to provide a regular supergravity solution in this model.

hep-th↗

arXiv2009

On Half-BPS States of the ABJM Theory

We analyze SU(2) invariant half-BPS states of the 3d \cN=8 or \cN=6 SCFT within the radial quantization of the ABJM theory, the theory proposed to describe N M2-branes in the R^3x C^4/Z_k background. After studying the classical moduli space of these configurations, we explicitly construct a set of gauge invariant operators involving 't Hooft monopole operators corresponding to these states. We show there is a one--to--one correspondence between the two sets carrying R-charge J and that they are labeled by Young tableaux of J boxes with a maximum of N rows. Restricting the full path integral to this half-BPS sector of the theory, we show the latter is described in terms of N fermions in a 2d harmonic potential in the sector of vanishing angular momentum. The same classification, though in the N to infinity limit, arise from the plane-wave (BMN) Matrix theory as well as the 11 dimensional LLM bubbling geometries, providing supportive evidence for the ABJM theory and/or the Matrix model.

hep-th↗

arXiv2009

Constituent Model of Extremal non-BPS Black Holes

We interpret extremal non-BPS black holes in four dimensions as threshold bound states of four 1/2-BPS constituents. We verify the no-force condition for each of the primitive constituents in the probe approximation. Our computations are for a seed solution with $\bar{D0}-D4$ charges and equal $B$-fields, but symmetries extend the result to any U-dual frame. We make the constituent model for the $D0-D6$ system explicit, and also discuss a duality frame where the constituents are $D3$ branes at angles. We demonstrate stability of the constituent model in the weak coupling description of the constituent D-branes. We discuss the relation between the BPS and non-BPS branches of configuration space.

hep-th↗

arXiv2009

Quantum geometry and gravitational entropy

Most quantum states have wavefunctions that are widely spread over the accessible Hilbert space and hence do not have a good description in terms of a single classical geometry. In order to understand when geometric descriptions are possible, we exploit the AdS/CFT correspondence in the half-BPS sector of asymptotically AdS_5 x S^5 universes. In this sector we devise a "coarse-grained metric operator" whose eigenstates are well described by a single spacetime topology and geometry. We show that such half-BPS universes have a non-vanishing entropy if and only if the metric is singular, and that the entropy arises from coarse-graining the geometry. Finally, we use our entropy formula to find the most entropic spacetimes with fixed asymptotic moments beyond the global charges.

hep-th↗

arXiv2008

Topology from Cosmology

We show that cosmological observables can constrain the topology of the compact additional dimensions predicted by string theory. To do this, we develop a general strategy for relating cosmological observables to the microscopic parameters of the potentials and field-dependent kinetic terms of the multiple scalar fields that arise in the low-energy limit of string theory. We apply this formalism to the Large Volume Scenarios in Type IIB flux compactifications where analytical calculations are possible. Our methods generalize to other settings.

hep-th↗

arXiv2007

Black Holes in Supergravity: the non-BPS Branch

We construct extremal, spherically symmetric black hole solutions to 4D supergravity with charge assignments that preclude BPS-saturation. In particular, we determine the ground state energy as a function of charges and moduli. We find that the mass of the non-BPS black hole remains that of a marginal bound state of four basic constituents throughout the entire moduli space and that there is always a non-zero gap above the BPS bound.

hep-th↗

arXiv2007

Typicality, Black Hole Microstates and Superconformal Field Theories

We analyze the structure of heavy multitrace BPS operators in N = 1 superconformal quiver gauge theories that arise on the worldvolume of D3-branes on an affine toric cone. We exhibit a geometric procedure for counting heavy mesonic operators with given U(1) charges. We show that for any fixed linear combination of the U(1) charges, the entropy is maximized when the charges are in certain ratios. This selects preferred directions in the charge space that can be determined with the help of a piece of string. We show that almost all heavy mesonic operators of fixed U(1) charges share a universal structure. This universality reflects the properties of the dual extremal black holes whose microstates they create. We also interpret our results in terms of typical configurations of dual giant gravitons in AdS space.

hep-th↗

arXiv2007

Entropy of near-extremal black holes in AdS_5

We construct the microstates of near-extremal black holes in AdS_5 x S^5 as gases of defects distributed in heavy BPS operators in the dual SU(N) Yang-Mills theory. These defects describe open strings on spherical D3-branes in the S^5, and we show that they dominate the entropy by directly enumerating them and comparing the results with a partition sum calculation. We display new decoupling limits in which the field theory of the lightest open strings on the D-branes becomes dual to a near-horizon region of the black hole geometry. In the single-charge black hole we find evidence for an infrared duality between SU(N) Yang-Mills theories that exchanges the rank of the gauge group with an R-charge. In the two-charge case (where pairs of branes intersect on a line), the decoupled geometry includes an AdS_3 factor with a two-dimensional CFT dual. The degeneracy in this CFT accounts for the black hole entropy. In the three-charge case (where triples of branes intersect at a point), the decoupled geometry contains an AdS_2 factor. Below a certain critical mass, the two-charge system displays solutions with naked timelike singularities even though they do not violate a BPS bound. We suggest a string theoretic resolution of these singularities.

hep-th↗

arXiv2007

Typicality versus thermality: An analytic distinction

In systems with a large degeneracy of states such as black holes, one expects that the average value of probe correlation functions will be well approximated by the thermal ensemble. To understand how correlation functions in individual microstates differ from the canonical ensemble average and from each other, we study the variances in correlators. Using general statistical considerations, we show that the variance between microstates will be exponentially suppressed in the entropy. However, by exploiting the analytic properties of correlation functions we argue that these variances are amplified in imaginary time, thereby distinguishing pure states from the thermal density matrix. We demonstrate our general results in specific examples and argue that our results apply to the microstates of black holes.

hep-th↗

arXiv2006

A Fermi Surface Model for Large Supersymmetric AdS_5 Black Holes

We identify a large family of 1/16 BPS operators in N=4 SYM that qualitatively reproduce the relations between charge, angular momentum and entropy in regular supersymmetric AdS_5 black holes when the main contribution to their masses is given by their angular momentum.

hep-th↗

arXiv2006

Using cosmology to constrain the topology of hidden dimensions

A four-dimensional universe, arising from a flux compactification of Type IIB string theory, contains scalar fields with a potential determined by topological and geometric parameters of the internal -hidden- dimensions. We show that inflation can be realized via rolling towards the large internal volume minima that are generic in these scenarios, and we give explicit formulae relating the microscopic parameters (e.g., the Euler number of the internal space) to the cosmological observables (e.g., the spectral index). We find that the tensor-to-scalar ratio, the running of the spectral index, and the potential energy density at the minimum are related by consistency relations and are exponentially small in the number of e-foldings. Further, requiring that these models arise as low-energy limits of string theory eliminates most of them, even if they are phenomenologically valid. In this context, this approach provides a strategy for systematically falsifying stringy inflation models.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2006

Integrability vs. Information Loss: A Simple Example

The half-BPS sector of Yang-Mills theory with 16 supercharges is integrable: there is a set of commuting conserved charges, whose eigenvalues can completely identify a state. We show that these charges can be measured in the dual gravitational description from asymptotic multipole moments of the spacetime. However, Planck scale measurements are required to separate the charges of different microstates. Thus, semiclassical observers making coarse-grained measurements necessarily lose information about the underlying quantum state.

hep-th↗