Entropy and Temperature of Black 3-Branes

We consider slightly non-extremal black 3-branes of type IIB supergravity and show that their Bekenstein-Hawking entropy agrees, up to a mysterious factor, with an entropy derived by counting non-BPS excitations of the Dirichlet 3-brane. These excitations are described in terms of the statistical mechanics of a 3+1 dimensional gas of massless open string states. This is essentially the classic problem of blackbody radiation. The blackbody temperature is related to the temperature of the Hawking radiation. We also construct a solution of type IIB supergravity describing a 3-brane with a finite density of longitudinal momentum. For extremal momentum-carrying 3-branes the horizon area vanishes. This is in agreement with the fact that the BPS entropy of the momentum-carrying Dirichlet 3-branes is not an extensive quantity.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, minor revisions. v3: version that appeared in PR

G2 Dualities in D=5 Supergravity and Black Strings

Five dimensional minimal supergravity dimensionally reduced on two commuting Killing directions gives rise to a G2 coset model. The symmetry group of the coset model can be used to generate new solutions by applying group transformations on a seed solution. We show that on a general solution the generators belonging to the Cartan and nilpotent subalgebras of G2 act as scaling and gauge transformations, respectively. The remaining generators of G2 form a sl(2,R)+sl(2,R) subalgebra that can be used to generate non-trivial charges. We use these generators to generalize the five dimensional Kerr string in a number of ways. In particular, we construct the spinning electric and spinning magnetic black strings of five dimensional minimal supergravity. We analyze physical properties of these black strings and study their thermodynamics. We also explore their relation to black rings.Comment: typos corrected (26 pages + appendices, 2 figures

Generic isolated horizons in loop quantum gravity

Isolated horizons model equilibrium states of classical black holes. A detailed quantization, starting from a classical phase space restricted to spherically symmetric horizons, exists in the literature and has since been extended to axisymmetry. This paper extends the quantum theory to horizons of arbitrary shape. Surprisingly, the Hilbert space obtained by quantizing the full phase space of \textit{all} generic horizons with a fixed area is identical to that originally found in spherical symmetry. The entropy of a large horizon remains one quarter its area, with the Barbero-Immirzi parameter retaining its value from symmetric analyses. These results suggest a reinterpretation of the intrinsic quantum geometry of the horizon surface.Comment: 13 page

Feynman Path Integral on the Noncommutative Plane

We formulate Feynman path integral on a non commutative plane using coherent states. The propagator for a free particle exhibits UV cut-off induced by the parameter of non commutativity.Comment: 7pages, latex 2e, no figures. Accepted for publication on J.Phys.

Fractional Conformal Descendants and Correlators in General 2D SNS_N Orbifold CFTs at Large NN

We consider correlation functions in symmetric product ($S_N$) orbifold CFTs at large $N$ with arbitrary seed CFT. Specifically, we consider correlators of descendant operators constructed using both the full Virasoro generators $L_{m}$ and fractional Virasoro generators $\ell_{m/n_i}$. Using covering space techniques, we show that correlators of descendants may be written entirely in terms of correlators of ancestors, and further that the appropriate set of ancestors are those operators that lift to conformal primaries on the cover. We argue that the covering space data should cancel out in such calculations. To back this claim, we provide some example calculations by considering a three-point function of the form (4-cycle)-(2-cycle)-(5-cycle) that lifts to a three-point function of arbitrary primaries on the cover, and descendants thereof. In these examples we show that while the covering space is used for the calculation, the final descent relations do not depend on covering space data, nor on the details of which seed CFT is used to construct the orbifold, making these results universal.Comment: 30 page

Non-supersymmetric Black Holes and Topological Strings

We study non-supersymmetric, extremal 4 dimensional black holes which arise upon compactification of type II superstrings on Calabi-Yau threefolds. We propose a generalization of the OSV conjecture for higher derivative corrections to the non-supersymmetric black hole entropy, in terms of the one parameter refinement of topological string introduced by Nekrasov. We also study the attractor mechanism for non-supersymmetric black holes and show how the inverse problem of fixing charges in terms of the attractor value of CY moduli can be explicitly solved.Comment: 47 pages, harvmac. v2: footnote(4) expanded, references adde