153 research outputs found
Smooth Horizonless Geometries Deep Inside the Black-Hole Regime
This Letter has been highlighted by the editors as an Editor's Suggestion.This Letter has been highlighted by the editors as an Editor's Suggestion
Taming open/closed string duality with a Losev trick
A target space string field theory formulation for open and closed B-model is
provided by giving a Batalin-Vilkovisky quantization of the holomorphic
Chern-Simons theory with off-shell gravity background. The target space
expression for the coefficients of the holomorphic anomaly equation for open
strings are obtained. Furthermore, open/closed string duality is proved from a
judicious integration over the open string fields. In particular, by
restriction to the case of independence on continuous open moduli, the shift
formulas of [7] are reproduced and shown therefore to encode the data of a
closed string dual.Comment: 22 pages, no figures; v.2 Refs. and a comment added
Manifestly Supersymmetric RG Flows
Renormalisation group (RG) equations in two-dimensional N=1 supersymmetric
field theories with boundary are studied. It is explained how a manifestly N=1
supersymmetric scheme can be chosen, and within this scheme the RG equations
are determined to next-to-leading order. We also use these results to revisit
the question of how brane obstructions and lines of marginal stability appear
from a world-sheet perspective.Comment: 22 pages; references added, minor change
The supermultiplet of boundary conditions in supergravity
Boundary conditions in supergravity on a manifold with boundary relate the
bulk gravitino to the boundary supercurrent, and the normal derivative of the
bulk metric to the boundary energy-momentum tensor. In the 3D N=1 setting, we
show that these boundary conditions can be stated in a manifestly
supersymmetric form. We identify the Extrinsic Curvature Tensor Multiplet, and
show that boundary conditions set it equal to (a conjugate of) the boundary
supercurrent multiplet. Extension of our results to higher-dimensional models
(including the Randall-Sundrum and Horava-Witten scenarios) is discussed.Comment: 22 pages. JHEP format; references added; published versio
Towards the F-Theorem: N=2 Field Theories on the Three-Sphere
For 3-dimensional field theories with {\cal N}=2 supersymmetry the Euclidean
path integrals on the three-sphere can be calculated using the method of
localization; they reduce to certain matrix integrals that depend on the
R-charges of the matter fields. We solve a number of such large N matrix models
and calculate the free energy F as a function of the trial R-charges consistent
with the marginality of the superpotential. In all our {\cal N}=2
superconformal examples, the local maximization of F yields answers that scale
as N^{3/2} and agree with the dual M-theory backgrounds AdS_4 x Y, where Y are
7-dimensional Sasaki-Einstein spaces. We also find in toric examples that local
F-maximization is equivalent to the minimization of the volume of Y over the
space of Sasakian metrics, a procedure also referred to as Z-minimization.
Moreover, we find that the functions F and Z are related for any trial
R-charges. In the models we study F is positive and decreases along RG flows.
We therefore propose the "F-theorem" that we hope applies to all 3-d field
theories: the finite part of the free energy on the three-sphere decreases
along RG trajectories and is stationary at RG fixed points. We also show that
in an infinite class of Chern-Simons-matter gauge theories where the
Chern-Simons levels do not sum to zero, the free energy grows as N^{5/3} at
large N. This non-trivial scaling matches that of the free energy of the
gravity duals in type IIA string theory with Romans mass.Comment: 66 pages, 10 figures; v2: refs. added, minor improvement
Non-Perturbative Topological Strings And Conformal Blocks
We give a non-perturbative completion of a class of closed topological string
theories in terms of building blocks of dual open strings. In the specific case
where the open string is given by a matrix model these blocks correspond to a
choice of integration contour. We then apply this definition to the AGT setup
where the dual matrix model has logarithmic potential and is conjecturally
equivalent to Liouville conformal field theory. By studying the natural
contours of these matrix integrals and their monodromy properties, we propose a
precise map between topological string blocks and Liouville conformal blocks.
Remarkably, this description makes use of the light-cone diagrams of closed
string field theory, where the critical points of the matrix potential
correspond to string interaction points.Comment: 36 page
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