How do constituent quarks arise in QCD? Perturbation theory and the infra-red

We motivate the use of dressed charges by arguing that such objects are needed to describe, e.g., constituent quarks and, in general, physical charged states in gauge theories. We give a short introduction to dressings in both QED and QCD. We put special emphasis on the infra-red properties of a moving dressed charge. To be more precise, we demonstrate that the one loop propagator of a relativistic dressed charge can be renormalized in the mass shell scheme with no infra-red divergence showing up.Comment: 5 pages, espcrc2.sty required, talk given at QDC-96, Montpellier, July 1996, A related simulation may be found at http://www.ifae.es/~roy

Defect CFTs and holographic multiverse

We investigate some aspects of a recent proposal for a holographic description of the multiverse. Specifically, we focus on the implications on the suggested duality of the fluctuations of a bubble separating two universes with different cosmological constants. We do so by considering a similar problem in a 2+1 CFT with a codimension one defect, obtained by an M5-brane probe embedding in AdS_4x S^7, and studying its spectrum of fluctuations. Our results suggest that the kind of behavior required by the spectrum of bubble fluctuations is not likely to take place in defect CFTs with an AdS dual, although it might be possible if the defect supports a non-unitary theory.Comment: 19 pages; v2: typos fixed, minor changes

Extremal non-BPS black holes and entropy extremization

At the horizon, a static extremal black hole solution in N=2 supergravity in four dimensions is determined by a set of so-called attractor equations which, in the absence of higher-curvature interactions, can be derived as extremization conditions for the black hole potential or, equivalently, for the entropy function. We contrast both methods by explicitly solving the attractor equations for a one-modulus prepotential associated with the conifold. We find that near the conifold point, the non-supersymmetric solution has a substantially different behavior than the supersymmetric solution. We analyze the stability of the solutions and the extrema of the resulting entropy as a function of the modulus. For the non-BPS solution the region of attractivity and the maximum of the entropy do not coincide with the conifold point.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, AMS-LaTeX, reference adde

A deformation of AdS_5 x S^5

We analyse a one parameter family of supersymmetric solutions of type IIB supergravity that includes AdS_5 x S^5. For small values of the parameter the solutions are causally well-behaved, but beyond a critical value closed timelike curves (CTC's) appear. The solutions are holographically dual to N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on a non-conformally flat background with non-vanishing R-currents. We compute the holographic energy-momentum tensor for the spacetime and show that it remains finite even when the CTC's appear. The solutions, as well as the uplift of some recently discovered AdS_5 black hole solutions, are shown to preserve precisely two supersymmetries.Comment: 16 pages, v2: typos corrected and references adde

Flavor from M5-branes

We study various aspects of the defect conformal field theory that arises when placing a single M5-brane probe in AdS_4 x S^7. We derive the full set of fluctuation modes and dimensions of the corresponding dual operators. We argue that the latter does not depend on the presence of a non-trivial magnetic flux on the M5-brane world-volume. Finally we give a mass to the hypermultiplet living on the defect, and compute the resulting mesonic spectrum.Comment: 19 page

Entropy Maximization in the Presence of Higher-Curvature Interactions

Within the context of the entropic principle, we consider the entropy of supersymmetric black holes in N=2 supergravity theories in four dimensions with higher-curvature interactions, and we discuss its maximization at points in moduli space at which an excess of hypermultiplets becomes massless. We find that the gravitational coupling function F^(1) enhances the maximization at these points in moduli space. In principle, this enhancement may be modified by the contribution from higher F^(g)-couplings. We show that this is indeed the case for the resolved conifold by resorting to the non-perturbative expression for the topological free energy.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, AMS-LaTe

Supersymmetric Godel-type Universe in four Dimensions

We generalize the classification of all supersymmetric solutions of pure N=2, D=4 gauged supergravity to the case when external sources are included. It is shown that the source must be an electrically charged dust. We give a particular solution to the resulting equations, that describes a Goedel-type universe preserving one quarter of the supersymmetries.Comment: 6 pages, Latex. v2: references and footnote added. v3: introduction expanded, minor corrections, references added. Final versio

Supertube domain-walls and elimination of closed time-like curves in string theory

We show that some novel physics of supertubes removes closed time-like curves from many supersymmetric spaces which naively suffer from this problem. The main claim is that supertubes naturally form domain-walls, so while analytical continuation of the metric would lead to closed time-like curves, across the domain-wall the metric is non-differentiable, and the closed time-like curves are eliminated. In the examples we study the metric inside the domain-wall is always of the G\"odel type, while outside the shell it looks like a localized rotating object, often a rotating black hole. Thus this mechanism prevents the appearance of closed time-like curves behind the horizons of certain rotating black holes.Comment: 22 pages, JHEP3 class. V2: Some corrections and clariffications, references added. V3: more corrections to formulas, results unchanged. V4: minor typos, as published in PR

Exact results for static and radiative fields of a quark in N=4 super Yang-Mills

In this work (which supersedes our previous preprint arXiv:1112.2345) we determine the expectation value of the N=4$ SU(N) SYM Lagrangian density operator in the presence of an infinitely heavy static particle in the symmetric representation of SU(N), by means of a D3-brane probe computation. The result that we obtain coincides with two previous computations of different observables, up to kinematical factors. We argue that these agreements go beyond the D-brane probe approximation, which leads us to propose an exact formula for the expectation value of various operators. In particular, we provide an expression for the total energy loss by radiation of a heavy particle in the fundamental representation.Comment: 14 pages. This submission supersedes our previous preprint arXiv:1112.2345. v2: numerical factors fixed, minor clarifications, added reference