First order flow equations for nonextremal black holes in AdS (super)gravity

We consider electrically charged static nonextremal black holes in $d$-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell-(A)dS gravity, whose horizon is a generic Einstein space in $d-2$ dimensions. It is shown that for this system the Hamilton-Jacobi equation is exactly solvable and admits two branches of solutions. One of them exhibits a non-simply connected domain of integration constants and does not reduce to the well-known solution for the $d=4$ BPS case. The principal functions generate two first order flows that are analytically different, but support the same general solution. One of the two sets of flow equations corresponds to those found by L\"u, Pope and V\'azquez-Poritz in hep-th/0307001 and (for $d=4$ and $\Lambda=0$) by Miller, Schalm and Weinberg in hep-th/0612308. This clarifies also the reason for the very existence of first order equations for nonextremal black holes, namely, they are just the expressions for the conjugate momenta in terms of derivatives of the principal function in a Hamilton-Jacobi formalism. In the last part of our paper we analyze how much of these integrability properties generalizes to matter-coupled $N=2$, $d=4$ gauged supergravity.Comment: 17 pages. v2: Refs. added. v3: Final version to appear in JHE

On the integrability of Einstein-Maxwell-(A)dS gravity in presence of Killing vectors

We study some symmetry and integrability properties of four-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell gravity with nonvanishing cosmological constant in the presence of Killing vectors. First of all, we consider stationary spacetimes, which lead, after a timelike Kaluza-Klein reduction followed by a dualization of the two vector fields, to a three-dimensional nonlinear sigma model coupled to gravity, whose target space is a noncompact version of $\mathbb{C}\text{P}^2$ with SU(2,1) isometry group. It is shown that the potential for the scalars, that arises from the cosmological constant in four dimensions, breaks three of the eight SU(2,1) symmetries, corresponding to the generalized Ehlers and the two Harrison transformations. This leaves a semidirect product of a one-dimensional Heisenberg group and a translation group $\mathbb{R}^2$ as residual symmetry. We show that, under the additional assumptions that the three-dimensional manifold is conformal to a product space $\mathbb{R}\times\Sigma$, and all fields depend only on the coordinate along $\mathbb{R}$, the equations of motion are integrable. This generalizes the results of Leigh et al. in arXiv:1403.6511 to the case where also electromagnetic fields are present. In the second part of the paper we consider the purely gravitational spacetime admitting a second Killing vector that commutes with the timelike one. We write down the resulting two-dimensional action and discuss its symmetries. If the fields depend only on one of the two coordinates, the equations of motion are again integrable, and the solution turns out to be one constructed by Krasinski many years ago.Comment: 24 pages, uses jheppub.sty. v2: Final version to be published in CQ

Duality invariance in Fayet-Iliopoulos gauged supergravity

We propose a geometric method to study the residual symmetries in $N=2$, $d=4$ $\text{U}(1)$ Fayet-Iliopoulos (FI) gauged supergravity. It essentially involves the stabilization of the symplectic vector of gauge couplings (FI parameters) under the action of the U-duality symmetry of the ungauged theory. In particular we are interested in those transformations that act non-trivially on the solutions and produce scalar hair and dyonic black holes from a given seed. We illustrate the procedure for finding this group in general and then show how it works in some specific models. For the prepotential $F=-iX^0X^1$, we use our method to add one more parameter to the rotating Chow-Comp\`ere solution, representing scalar hair.Comment: 31 pages, uses jheppub.sty. Final version to appear on JHE

Black string first order flow in N = 2, d = 5 abelian gauged supergravity

We derive both BPS and non-BPS first-order flow equations for magnetically charged black strings in five-dimensional N=2 abelian gauged supergravity, using the Hamilton-Jacobi formalism. This is first done for the coupling to vector multiplets only and U(1) Fayet-Iliopoulos (FI) gauging, and then generalized to the case where also hypermultiplets are present, and abelian symmetries of the quaternionic hyperscalar target space are gauged. We then use these results to derive the attractor equations for near-horizon geometries of extremal black strings, and solve them explicitely for the case where the constants appearing in the Chern-Simons term of the supergravity action satisfy an adjoint identity. This allows to compute in generality the central charge of the two-dimensional conformal field theory that describes the black strings in the infrared, in terms of the magnetic charges, the CY intersection numbers and the FI constants. Finally, we extend the r-map to gauged supergravity and use it to relate our flow equations to those in four dimensions.Comment: 21 pages, uses jheppub.sty. v2: Minor errors corrected, refs. added. v3: Minor error corrected in app. B, small discussion of string theory realization added in final remark

Supersymmetry of Anti-de Sitter Black Holes

We examine supersymmetry of four-dimensional asymptotically anti-de Sitter (AdS) dyonic black holes in the context of gauged N=2 supergravity. Our calculations concentrate on black holes with unusual topology and their rotating generalizations, but we also reconsider the spherical rotating dyonic Kerr-Newman-AdS black hole, whose supersymmetry properties have previously been investigated by Kosteleck\'{y} and Perry within another approach. We find that in the case of spherical, toroidal or cylindrical event horizon topology, the black holes must rotate in order to preserve some supersymmetry; the non-rotating supersymmetric configurations representing naked singularities. However, we show that this is no more true for black holes whose event horizons are Riemann surfaces of genus $g>1$, where we find a nonrotating extremal solitonic black hole carrying magnetic charge and permitting one Killing spinor. For the nonrotating supersymmetric configurations of various topologies, all Killing spinors are explicitly constructed.Comment: 27 pages, revtex, no figures. Minor errors corrected. Final version to appear in Nucl. Phys.

Symmetry Considerations for Learning Task Symmetric Robot Policies

Symmetry is a fundamental aspect of many real-world robotic tasks. However, current deep reinforcement learning (DRL) approaches can seldom harness and exploit symmetry effectively. Often, the learned behaviors fail to achieve the desired transformation invariances and suffer from motion artifacts. For instance, a quadruped may exhibit different gaits when commanded to move forward or backward, even though it is symmetrical about its torso. This issue becomes further pronounced in high-dimensional or complex environments, where DRL methods are prone to local optima and fail to explore regions of the state space equally. Past methods on encouraging symmetry for robotic tasks have studied this topic mainly in a single-task setting, where symmetry usually refers to symmetry in the motion, such as the gait patterns. In this paper, we revisit this topic for goal-conditioned tasks in robotics, where symmetry lies mainly in task execution and not necessarily in the learned motions themselves. In particular, we investigate two approaches to incorporate symmetry invariance into DRL -- data augmentation and mirror loss function. We provide a theoretical foundation for using augmented samples in an on-policy setting. Based on this, we show that the corresponding approach achieves faster convergence and improves the learned behaviors in various challenging robotic tasks, from climbing boxes with a quadruped to dexterous manipulation.Comment: M. Mittal and N. Rudin contributed equally. Accepted for ICRA 202

AdS_2 Supergravity and Superconformal Quantum Mechanics

We investigate the asymptotic dynamics of topological anti-de Sitter supergravity in two dimensions. Starting from the formulation as a BF theory, it is shown that the AdS_2 boundary conditions imply that the asymptotic symmetries form a super-Virasoro algebra. Using the central charge of this algebra in Cardy's formula, we exactly reproduce the thermodynamical entropy of AdS_2 black holes. Furthermore, we show that the dynamics of the dilaton and its superpartner reduces to that of superconformal transformations that leave invariant one chiral component of the stress tensor supercurrent of a two-dimensional conformal field theory. This dynamics is governed by a supersymmetric extension of the de Alfaro-Fubini-Furlan model of conformal quantum mechanics. Finally, two-dimensional de Sitter gravity is also considered, and the dS_2 entropy is computed by counting CFT states.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX, refs. added, final version to appear in Annals Phy