Anti-de Sitter space and black holes

Anti-de Sitter space with identified points give rise to black-hole structures. This was first pointed out in three dimensions, and generalized to higher dimensions by Aminneborg et al. In this paper, we analyse several aspects of the five dimensional anti-de Sitter black hole including, its relation to thermal anti-de Sitter space, its embedding in a Chern-Simons supergravity theory, its global charges and holonomies, and the existence of Killing spinors.Comment: 15 pages (twocolumn), 2 Postscript figure

The action for higher spin black holes in three dimensions

In the context of (2+1)--dimensional Chern-Simons SL(N,R)\times SL(N,R) gauge fields and spin N black holes we compute the on-shell action and show that it generates sensible and consistent thermodynamics. In particular, the Chern-Simons action solves the integrability conditions recently considered in the literature.Comment: Paper shortened and generalized. Main results unchanged. 25 pages, Latex, no figure

Asymptotic charges in 3d gravity with torsion

We discuss some new developments in three-dimensional gravity with torsion, based on Riemann-Cartan geometry. Using the canonical approach, we study the structure of asymptotic symmetry, clarify its fundamental role in defining the gravitational conserved charges, and explore the influence of the asymptotic structure on the black hole entropy.Comment: 6 pages, LATEX file (+jpconf.cls,jpconf11.clo), Talk presented at Constrained Dynamics and Quantum Gravity 05, Cala Gonone (Sardinia, Italy), September 12-16, 200

Birkhoff's Theorem for Three-Dimensional AdS Gravity

All three-dimensional matter-free spacetimes with negative cosmological constant, compatible with cyclic symmetry are identified. The only cyclic solutions are the 2+1 (BTZ) black hole with SO(2) x R isometry, and the self-dual Coussaert-Henneaux spacetimes, with isometry groups SO(2) x SO(2,1) or SO(2) x SO(2).Comment: 11 pages, RevTeX4; minor typos corrected, Ref. added, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Mass Generation and Symmetry Breaking in Chern-Simons Supergravity

We argue that the quartic fermionic potential of five-dimensional Chern-Simons supergravity induces spontaneous symmetry breaking, in a phenomenon bearing a close connection with the Nambu and Jona-Lasinio model.Comment: 5 pages, 1 eps figure. Corrected and added reference

Asymptotic dynamics in 3D gravity with torsion

We study the nature of boundary dynamics in the teleparallel 3D gravity. The asymptotic field equations with anti-de Sitter boundary conditions yield only two non-trivial boundary modes, related to a conformal field theory with classical central charge. After showing that the teleparallel gravity can be formulated as a Chern-Simons theory, we identify dynamical structure at the boundary as the Liouville theory.Comment: 16 pages, RevTeX, no figure