arXiv subjects

Swapnamay Mondal

Publications and source records attributed to Swapnamay Mondal.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Classical Unattainability of Extremality in non-BPS D-brane Systems

For the worldline theory of an extremal black hole, extremality amounts to vanishing ground state energy. In light of recent gravity results one would expect much like the ground state degeneracy this fine tuned condition too will not be met. It is unclear though whether this should be a quantum artefact or classical. In this paper we consider a non-BPS extremal four-charge Reissner Nordstrom black hole in N = 8 String theory. It is shown that the microscopic D-brane description fails to admit any extremal state, even classically. This positive energy is expected to destabilize the near horizon AdS2. The positive minimum energy is a direct consequence of the pattern of supersymmetry breaking by the D-branes. The black hole entropy is found to be the logarithm of the number of isolated minima and hence is related to the configurational entropy of the microscopic potential. We also find multiple continua of local minima corresponding to marginally bound states of the constituent D-branes.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Phase Thermalization: from Fermi Liquid to Incoherent Metal

When a system consists of a large subsystem (bath) and a small one (probe), thermalization implies induction of temperature of the bath onto the probe. If both the bath and the probe are described by same microscopic Hamiltonian, thermalization further entails that the probe imbibes the phase of the bath. We refer to this phenomenon as {\it phase thermalization}. However, it is not clear whether this phenomenon is realizable when the probe and the bath are described by different microscopic Hamiltonians. We show {\it phase thermalization} is possible even when the microscopic Hamiltonians differ significantly. We provide an explicit example, where the probe is a Fermi liquid realized by a Majorana chain with $n \gg 1$ fermions per site interacting through random hopping and the bath is an incoherent metal described by another Majorana chain with $N > n$ fermions per site interacting through arbitrarily long range random four-fermion interaction. In deep infrared (\emph{i.e.} at very low energies), the probe turns into an incoherent metal, with Lyapunov spectrum and diffusion coefficient identical to the bath.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2024

Statistical Mechanics of Exponentially Many Low Lying States

It has recently been argued that for near-extremal black holes, the entropy and the energy above extremality respectively receive a logT and a T-linear correction, where T is the temperature. We show that both these features can be derived in a low but not too low temperature regime, by assuming the existence of exponentially many low lying states cleanly separated from rest of the spectrum, without using any specific theory. Argument of the logarithm in the expression of entropy is seen to be the ratio of temperature and the bandwidth of the low lying states. We argue that such spectrum might arise in non-supersymmetric extremal brane systems. Our findings strengthen Page's suggestion that there is no true degeneracy for non-supersymmetric extremal black holes.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

An extremal black hole with a unique ground state

Recent computations in gravity suggest that non-supersymmetric extremal black holes lack any sizeable ground state degeneracy. We confirm this for D-brane description of non-supersymmetric 4-charge extremal black holes in N=8 string theory. The microscopic description comprises four stacks of D-branes wrapping various cycles of the internal six-torus and intersecting at a point. The orientations of the stacks are such that supersymmetry is broken completely. We construct the low energy worldline Lagrangian for the brane system, which is seen to have 32 Goldstinos and 28 Goldstones. The Hamiltonian has a unique ground state, which carries a non-zero energy implying the absence of any truly extremal state.

hep-th↗

arXiv2023

Non-trivial saddles in microscopic description of black holes

Non-trivial gravitational saddles have played a key role in the island proposal for the black hole information paradox. It is worth asking if non-trivial saddles exist in microscopic descriptions of black holes. We show this to be the case for 1/8 BPS black holes in N = 8 String Theory in a duality frame, where all charges are Ramond Ramond. The saddles are in the Coulomb branch, where they describe marginally stable bound states of the constituent branes, and correspond to vacua of the BFSS model. The non-perturbative suppression scale is determined by the binding energy.

hep-th↗

arXiv2023

Black holes and the loss landscape in machine learning

Understanding the loss landscape is an important problem in machine learning. One key feature of the loss function, common to many neural network architectures, is the presence of exponentially many low lying local minima. Physical systems with similar energy landscapes may provide useful insights. In this work, we point out that black holes naturally give rise to such landscapes, owing to the existence of black hole entropy. For definiteness, we consider 1/8 BPS black holes in $\mathcal{N} = 8$ string theory. These provide an infinite family of potential landscapes arising in the microscopic descriptions of corresponding black holes. The counting of minima amounts to black hole microstate counting. Moreover, the exact numbers of the minima for these landscapes are a priori known from dualities in string theory. Some of the minima are connected by paths of low loss values, resembling mode connectivity. We estimate the number of runs needed to find all the solutions. Initial explorations suggest that Stochastic Gradient Descent can find a significant fraction of the minima.

hep-th↗

arXiv2022

Supersymmetric black holes and $T\bar T$ deformation

The entropy of supersymmetric black holes in string theory compactifications can be related to that of a D- or M-brane system, which in many cases can be further reduced to a two-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT). For black holes in M-theory, this relation involves a decoupling limit where the black hole mass diverges. We suggest that moving away from this limit corresponds to a specific irrelevant perturbation of the CFT, namely the supersymmetric completion of the $T\bar T$ deformation. We demonstrate that the black hole mass matches precisely with the $T\bar T$ deformed energy levels, upon identifying the $T\bar T$ deformation parameter with the inverse of the leading term of the black hole mass. We discuss various implications for black holes and deformed CFT's, including a Hagedorn temperature for wrapped M5-branes, and potential change of degeneracies in the deformed theory.

hep-th↗

arXiv2021

Scaling Black Holes and Modularity

Scaling black holes are solutions of supergravity with multiple black hole singularities, which can be adiabatically connected to a single center black hole solution. We develop techniques to determine partition functions for such scaling black holes, if each constituent carries a non-vanishing magnetic charge corresponding to a D4-brane in string theory, or equivalently M5-brane in M-theory. For three constituents, we demonstrate that the partition function is a mock modular form of depth two, and we determine the appropriate non-holomorphic completion using generalized error functions. From the four-dimensional perspective, the modular parameter is the axion-dilaton, and our results show that $S$-duality leaves this subset of the spectrum invariant. From the five-dimensional perspective, the modular parameter is the complex structure of a torus $T^2$, and the scaling black holes are dual to states in the dimensional reduction of the M5-brane worldvolume theory to $T^2$. As a case study, we specialize the compactification manifold to a K3 fibration, and explicitly evaluate holomorphic parts of partition functions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2021

Multi-centered black holes, scaling solutions and pure-Higgs indices from localization

The Coulomb Branch Formula conjecturally expresses the refined Witten index for $N=4$ Quiver Quantum Mechanics as a sum over multi-centered collinear black hole solutions, weighted by so-called `single-centered' or `pure-Higgs' indices, and suitably modified when the quiver has oriented cycles. On the other hand, localization expresses the same index as an integral over the complexified Cartan torus and auxiliary fields, which by Stokes' theorem leads to the famous Jeffrey-Kirwan residue formula. Here, by evaluating the same integral using steepest descent methods, we show the index is in fact given by a sum over deformed multi-centered collinear solutions, which encompasses both regular and scaling collinear solutions. As a result, we confirm the Coulomb Branch Formula for Abelian quivers in the presence of oriented cycles, and identify the origin of the pure-Higgs and minimal modification terms as coming from collinear scaling solutions. For cyclic Abelian quivers, we observe that part of the scaling contributions reproduce the stacky invariants for trivial stability, a mathematically well-defined notion whose physics significance had remained obscure.

hep-th↗

arXiv2019

Conformality of $1/N$ corrections in SYK-like models

The Sachdev--Ye--Kitaev is a quantum mechanical model of $N$ Majorana fermions which displays a number of appealing features -- solvability in the strong coupling regime, near-conformal invariance and maximal chaos -- which make it a suitable model for black holes in the context of the AdS/CFT holography. In this paper, we show for the colored SYK model and several of its tensor model cousins that the next-to-leading order in the large $N$ expansion preserves the conformal invariance of the $2$-point function in the strong coupling regime, up to the contribution of the pseudo-Goldstone bosons due to the explicit breaking of the symmetry and which are already seen in the leading order $4$-point function. We also comment on the composite field approach for computing correlation functions in colored tensor models.

hep-th↗

arXiv2019

A simple model for Hawking radiation

We consider $n$ free Majorana fermions probing a SYK system comprising of $N$ Majorana fermions. We solve the full system in deep infrared and in large $N$ (as well as large $n$) limit. The essential physics of the SYK system is not affected by the probe Majoranas, except addition of another tower of primaries. The SYK system is seen to induce maximal chaos as well as the whole spectrum of primaries, on to the probe system. The renormalization of soft mode action is computed. We comment on features in common with Hawking radiation.

hep-th↗

arXiv2019

Quiver indices and Abelianization from Jeffrey-Kirwan residues

In quiver quantum mechanics with 4 supercharges, supersymmetric ground states are known to be in one-to-one correspondence with Dolbeault cohomology classes on the moduli space of stable quiver representations. Using supersymmetric localization, the refined Witten index can be expressed as a residue integral with a specific contour prescription, originally due to Jeffrey and Kirwan, depending on the stability parameters. On the other hand, the physical picture of quiver quantum mechanics describing interactions of BPS black holes predicts that the refined Witten index of a non-Abelian quiver can be expressed as a sum of indices for Abelian quivers, weighted by `single-centered invariants'. In the case of quivers without oriented loops, we show that this decomposition naturally arises from the residue formula, as a consequence of applying the Cauchy-Bose identity to the vector multiplet contributions. For quivers with loops, the same procedure produces a natural decomposition of the single-centered invariants, which remains to be elucidated. In the process, we clarify some under-appreciated aspects of the localization formula. Part of the results reported herein have been obtained by implementing the Jeffrey-Kirwan residue formula in a public Mathematica code.

hep-th↗

arXiv2019

The full space of BPS multicenter states with pure D-brane charges

We investigate the space of BPS states in type IIA string theory on a T$^6$ wrapped by one D6 brane and three D2 branes wrapping three disjoint 2-tori. This system of branes has 12 ground states. We show that these 12 states are all recovered as Coulomb branch BPS multicenter bound states, in which each center preserves 16 supercharges. Moreover, we show that these multicenter solutions can only exist with zero angular momentum, supporting the conjecture that all black hole microstates have zero angular momentum. For large charges, they might describe "near-horizon limit" of fuzzballs.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

Super-maximal chaos and instability

An upper bound on Lyapunov exponent of a thermal many body quantum system has been conjectured recently. In this work, we attempt to achieve a physical understanding of what prevents a system from violating this bound. To this end, we propose - super-maximal chaos leads to instability. Our proposal is supported by findings in a SYK lattice model, with a tuneable parameter, which the Lyapunov spectrum depends upon. In the stable regime of this parameter, along with incoherent metallic phase, the system exhibits another novel phase, where transport is controlled neither by quasi-particles nor by diffusion. At the phase transition, diffusion coefficient, butterfly velocity and Thouless time diverges.

hep-th↗

arXiv2017

Tensor Models for Black Hole Probes

The infrared dynamics of the SYK model, as well as its associated tensor models, exhibit some of the non trivial features expected of a holographic dual of near extremal black holes. These include developing certain symmetries of the near horizon geometry and exhibiting maximal chaos. In this paper we present a generalization of these tensor models to include fields with fewer tensor indices and which can be thought of as describing probes in a black hole background. In large $N$ limit, dynamics of the original model remain unaffected by the probe fields and the four point functions of the probe fields exhibit maximal chaos, a non trivial feature expected of a black hole probe. Interestingly probe primaries have the same dimensions as primaries of the original fields.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Entanglement of Spatial Regions vs. Entanglement of Particles

Consider an arbitrary local quantum field theory with a gap or an arbitrary gapless free theory. We consider states in such a theory, that describe two entangled particles localized in disjoint regions of space. We show that in such a state, to leading order, Rényi entropies of spatial regions, containing only one of the particles are same as their quantum mechanical counterparts, after subtraction of vacuum contribution. Subleading corrections depend on overlap of wave functions. These results suggest that Von Neumann entropy of a spatial region, after subtraction of vacuum contribution, can serve as a measure of entanglement of indistinguishable particles in pure states.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Do All BPS Black Hole Microstates Carry Zero Angular Momentum?

From the analysis of the near horizon geometry and supersymmetry algebra it has been argued that all the microstates of single centered BPS black holes with four unbroken supersymmetries carry zero angular momentum in the region of the moduli space where the black hole description is valid. A stronger form of the conjecture would be that the result holds for any sufficiently generic point in the moduli space. In this paper we set out to test this conjecture for a class of black hole microstates in type II string theory on $T^6$, represented by four stacks of D-branes wrapped on various cycles of $T^6$. For this system the above conjecture translates to the statement that the moduli space of classical vacua must be a collection of points. Explicit analysis of systems carrying a low number of D-branes supports this conjecture.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Surviving in a Metastable de Sitter Space-Time

In a metastable de Sitter space any object has a finite life expectancy beyond which it undergoes vacuum decay. However, by spreading into different parts of the universe which will fall out of causal contact of each other in future, a civilization can increase its collective life expectancy, defined as the average time after which the last settlement disappears due to vacuum decay. We study in detail the collective life expectancy of two comoving objects in de Sitter space as a function of the initial separation, the horizon radius and the vacuum decay rate. We find that even with a modest initial separation, the collective life expectancy can reach a value close to the maximum possible value of 1.5 times that of the individual object if the decay rate is less than 1% of the expansion rate. Our analysis can be generalized to any number of objects, general trajectories not necessarily at rest in the comoving coordinates and general FRW space-time. As part of our analysis we find that in the current state of the universe dominated by matter and cosmological constant, the vacuum decay rate is increasing as a function of time due to accelerated expansion of the volume of the past light cone. Present decay rate is about 3.7 times larger than the average decay rate in the past and the final decay rate in the cosmological constant dominated epoch will be about 56 times larger than the average decay rate in the past. This considerably weakens the lower bound on the half-life of our universe based on its current age.

hep-th↗