Strings near black holes are Carrollian -- Part II

We study classical closed bosonic strings probing the near-horizon region of a non-extremal black hole and show that this corresponds to understanding string theory in the Carroll regime. This is done by first performing a Carroll expansion and then a near-horizon expansion of a closed relativistic string, subsequently showing that they agree. Concretely, we expand the phase space action in powers of $c^2$, where $c$ is the speed of light, assuming that the target space admits a string Carroll expansion (where two directions are singled out) and show that there exist two different Carroll strings: a magnetic and an electric string. The magnetic string has a Lorentzian worldsheet, whereas the worldsheet of the electric string is Carrollian. The geometry near the horizon of a four-dimensional (4D) Schwarzschild black hole takes the form of a string Carroll expansion (a 2D Rindler space fibred over a 2-sphere). We show that the solution space of relativistic strings near the horizon bifurcates and the two sectors precisely match with the magnetic/electric Carroll strings with an appropriate target space. Magnetic Carroll strings near a black hole shrink to a point on the two-sphere and either follow null geodesics or turn into folded strings on the 2D Rindler spacetime. Electric Carroll strings wrap the two-sphere and follow a massive geodesic in the Rindler space. Finally, we show that 4D non-extremal Kerr and Reissner-Nordstr\"om black holes also admit string Carroll expansions near their outer horizons, indicating that our formulation extends to generic non-extremal black holes

Holographic Renormalization for z=2 Lifshitz Space-Times from AdS

Lifshitz space-times with critical exponent z=2 can be obtained by dimensional reduction of Schroedinger space-times with critical exponent z=0. The latter space-times are asymptotically AdS solutions of AdS gravity coupled to an axion-dilaton system and can be uplifted to solutions of type IIB supergravity. This basic observation is used to perform holographic renormalization for 4-dimensional asymptotically z=2 locally Lifshitz space-times by Scherk-Schwarz dimensional reduction of the corresponding problem of holographic renormalization for 5-dimensional asymptotically locally AdS space-times coupled to an axion-dilaton system. We can thus define and characterize a 4-dimensional asymptotically locally z=2 Lifshitz space-time in terms of 5-dimensional AdS boundary data. In this setup the 4-dimensional structure of the Fefferman-Graham expansion and the structure of the counterterm action, including the scale anomaly, will be discussed. We find that for asymptotically locally z=2 Lifshitz space-times obtained in this way there are two anomalies each with their own associated nonzero central charge. Both anomalies follow from the Scherk--Schwarz dimensional reduction of the 5-dimensional conformal anomaly of AdS gravity coupled to an axion-dilaton system. Together they make up an action that is of the Horava-Lifshitz type with nonzero potential term for z=2 conformal gravity.Comment: 32 pages, v2: modified discussion of the central charge

Strings near black holes are Carrollian

We demonstrate that strings near the horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole, when viewed by a stationary observer at infinity, probe a string Carroll geometry, where the effective lightspeed is given by the distance from the horizon. We expand the Polyakov action in powers of this lightspeed to find a theory of Carrollian strings. We show that the string shrinks to a point to leading order near the horizon, which follows a null geodesic in a two-dimensional Rindler space. At the next-to-leading order the string oscillates in the embedding fields associated with the near-horizon two-sphere

From D3-Branes to Lifshitz Space-Times

We present a simple embedding of a z=2 Lifshitz space-time into type IIB supergravity. This is obtained by considering a stack of D3-branes in type IIB supergravity and deforming the world-volume by a plane wave. The plane wave is sourced by the type IIB axion. The superposition of the plane wave and the D3-branes is 1/4 BPS. The near horizon geometry of this configuration is a 5-dimensional z=0 Schroedinger space-time times a 5-sphere. This geometry is also 1/4 BPS. Upon compactification along the direction in which the wave is traveling the 5-dimensional z=0 Schroedinger space-time reduces to a 4-dimensional z=2 Lifshitz space-time. The compactification is such that the circle is small for weakly coupled type IIB string theory. This reduction breaks the supersymmetries. Further, we propose a general method to construct analytic z=2 Lifshitz black brane solutions. The method is based on deforming 5-dimensional AdS black strings by an axion wave and reducing to 4-dimensions. We illustrate this method with an example.Comment: version 3: version published in Classical and Quantum Gravit

The Tensor Hierarchies of Pure N=2,d=4,5,6 Supergravities

We study the supersymmetric tensor hierarchy of pure (gauged) N=2,d=4,5,6 supergravity and compare them with those of the pure, ungauged, theories (worked out by Gomis and Roest for d=5) and the predictions of the Kac-Moody approach made by Kleinschmidt and Roest. We find complete agreement in the ungauged case but we also find that, after gauging, new Stueckelberg symmetries reduce the number of independent "physical" top-forms. The analysis has to be performed to all orders in fermion fields. We discuss the construction of the worldvolume effective actions for the p-branes which are charged with respect to the (p+1)-form potentials and the relations between the tensor hierarchies and p-branes upon dimensional reduction.Comment: LaTeX2e file, 20 pages, 1 figure Results refined by extension of the analysis to all orders in fermion

Scaling solutions and geodesics in moduli space

In this paper we consider cosmological scaling solutions in general relativity coupled to scalar fields with a non-trivial moduli space metric. We discover that the scaling property of the cosmology is synonymous with the scalar fields tracing out a particular class of geodesics in moduli space - those which are constructed as integral curves of the gradient of the log of the potential. Given a generic scalar potential we explicitly construct a moduli metric that allows scaling solutions, and we show the converse - how one can construct a potential that allows scaling once the moduli metric is known.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Pseudo-supersymmetry and a Tale of Alternate Realities

We discuss how all variant 10d and 11d maximal supergravities, including star supergravities and supergravities in different signatures, can be obtained as different real slices of three complex actions. As an application we study the recently introduced domain-wall/cosmology correspondence in this approach. We give an example in 9d and 10d where the domain-wall and corresponding cosmology can be viewed as different real slices of the same complex solution. We argue how in this case the pseudo-supersymmetry of the cosmological solutions can be understood as the invariance under supersymmetry of a variant supergravity.Comment: 32 page

Q7-branes and their coupling to IIB supergravity

We show how, by making use of a new basis of the IIB supergravity axion-dilaton coset, SL(2,R)/SO(2), 7-branes that belong to different conjugacy classes of the duality group SL(2,R) naturally couple to IIB supergravity with appropriate source terms characterized by an SL(2,R) charge matrix Q. The conjugacy classes are determined by the value of the determinant of Q. The (p,q) 7-branes are the branes in the conjugacy class detQ = 0. The 7-branes in the conjugacy class detQ > 0 are labelled by three numbers (p,q,r) which parameterize the matrix Q and will be called Q7-branes. We construct the full bosonic Wess--Zumino term for the Q7-branes. In order to realize a gauge invariant coupling of the Q7-brane to the gauge fields of IIB supergravity it is necessary to introduce an SL(2,R) doublet of two distinct Born--Infeld fields on the Q7-brane world-volume.Comment: 31 pages, Latex fil