Firewalls in AdS/CFT

Several recent papers argue against firewalls by relaxing the requirement for locality outside the stretched horizon. In the firewall argument, locality essentially serves the purpose of ensuring that the degrees of freedom required for infall are those in the proximity of the black hole and not the ones in the early radiation. We make the firewall argument sharper by utilizing the AdS/CFT framework and claim that the firewall argument essentially states that the dual to a thermal state in the CFT is a firewall.Comment: 11 pages plus references, 8 figures; version accepted for publication in JHE

Multi-centered D1-D5 solutions at finite B-moduli

We study the fate of two-centered D1-D5 systems on T^4 away from the singular supergravity point in the moduli space. We do this by considering a background D1-D5 black hole with a self-dual B-field moduli turned on and treating the second center in the probe limit in this background. We find that in general marginal bound states at zero moduli become metastable at finite B-moduli, demonstrating a breaking of supersymmetry. However, we also find evidence that when the charges of both centers are comparable, the effects of supersymmetry breaking become negligible. We show that this effect is independent of string coupling and thus it should be possible to reproduce this in the CFT at weak coupling. We comment on the implications for the fuzzball proposal.Comment: 19 pages + appendices, 14 figures; v2: added important remark in example in introduction, rewrote first paragraph in sect 3.2 for clarity, other misc. small edits; as accepted for publication in JHE

Black holes vs. firewalls and thermo-field dynamics

In this essay, we examine the implications of the ongoing black holes vs. firewalls debate for the thermo-field dynamics of black holes by analyzing a CFT in a thermal state in the context of AdS/CFT. We argue that the themo-field doubled copy of the thermal CFT should be thought of not as a fictitious system, but as the image of the CFT in the heat-bath. While this idea was proposed earlier by Papadodimas et al., our following conclusions differ from theirs. In case of strong coupling between the CFT and the heat-bath this image allows for free infall through the horizon and the system is described by a black hole. Conversely, firewalls are the appropriate dual description in case of weak interaction of the CFT with its heat bath.Comment: 7 Pages, 4 figures. This essay received an honorable mention in the 2013 essay competition of the Gravity Research Foundation. v2: References adde

Cluster formation and anomalous fundamental diagram in an ant trail model

A recently proposed stochastic cellular automaton model ({\it J. Phys. A 35, L573 (2002)}), motivated by the motions of ants in a trail, is investigated in detail in this paper. The flux of ants in this model is sensitive to the probability of evaporation of pheromone, and the average speed of the ants varies non-monotonically with their density. This remarkable property is analyzed here using phenomenological and microscopic approximations thereby elucidating the nature of the spatio-temporal organization of the ants. We find that the observations can be understood by the formation of loose clusters, i.e. space regions of enhanced, but not maximal, density.Comment: 11 pages, REVTEX, with 11 embedded EPS file

A Mass Formula from Light to Hypernuclei

Simultaneous description of ordinary and hypernuclei masses by a single mass formula has been a great challenge in nuclear physics. Hyperon-separation energies of about forty Lambda($\Lambda$), three Lambda-Lambda($\Lambda\Lambda$), one Sigma($\Sigma$) and seven Cascade($\Xi$) hypernuclei have been experimentally found. Many of these nuclei are of light masses. We prescribe a new mass formula, called BWMH, which describes the normal and hypernuclei on the same footing. It is based on the modified-Bethe-Weizs\"acker mass formula (BWM). BWM is basically an extension of the Bethe-Weizs\"acker mass formula (BW) for light nuclei. The parameters of BWM were optimized by fitting about 3000 normal nuclei available recently. The original Bethe-Weizs\"acker mass formula (BW) was designed for medium and heavy mass nuclei and it fails for light nuclei. Two earlier works on hypernuclei based on this BW show some limitations. The BWMH gives improved agreement with the experimental data for the line of stability, one-neutron separation energy versus neutron number spectra of normal nuclei, and the hyperon-separation energies from hypernuclei. The drip lines are modified for addition of a $\Lambda$ hyperon in a normal nucleus.Comment: Presented at the "XXIX Mazurian Lakes Conference on Physics: Nuclear Physics and the Fundamental Processes, Piaski, Poland, August 30 - September 6, 2005." (7 pages, 1 Table, 1 Figure