A universal result on central charges in the presence of double-trace deformations

We study large N conformal field theories perturbed by relevant double-trace deformations. Using the auxiliary field trick, or Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation, we show that in the infrared the theory flows to another CFT. The generating functionals of planar correlators in the ultraviolet and infrared CFT's are shown to be related by a Legendre transform. Our main result is a universal expression for the difference of the scale anomalies between the ultraviolet and infrared fixed points, which is of order 1 in the large N expansion. Our computations are entirely field theoretic, and the results are shown to agree with predictions from AdS/CFT. We also remark that a certain two-point function can be computed for all energy scales on both sides of the duality, with full agreement between the two and no scheme dependence.Comment: 15 pages, latex2e, no figures. v2: references adde

Emission of charged particles from four- and five-dimensional black holes

Recently Das and Mathur found that the leading order Hawking emission rate of neutral scalars by near-extremal $D=5$ black holes is exactly reproduced by a string theoretic model involving intersecting D-branes. We show that the agreement continues to hold for charged scalar emission. We further show that similar agreement can be obtained for a class of near-extremal $D=4$ black holes using a model inspired by M-theory. In this model, BPS saturated $D=4$ black holes with four charges are realized in M-theory as 5-branes triply intersecting over a string. The low-energy excitations are signals traveling on the intersection string.Comment: 15 pages, latex; typos corrected, a reference adde

Absorption by Threebranes and the AdS/CFT Correspondence

In the first part of this talk I discuss two somewhat different supergravity approaches to calculating correlation functions in strongly coupled Yang-Mills theory. The older approach relates two-point functions to cross-sections for absorption of certain incident quanta by threebranes. In this approach the normalization of operators corresponding to the incident particles is fixed unambiguously by the D3-brane DBI action. By calculating absorption cross-sections of all partial waves of the dilaton we find corresponding two-point functions at strong `t Hooft coupling and show that they are identical to the weak coupling results. The newer approach to correlation functions relates them to boundary conditions in AdS space. Using this method we show that for a certain range of negative mass-squared there are two possible operator dimensions corresponding to a given scalar field in AdS, and indicate how to calculate correlation functions for either of these choices. In the second part of the talk I discuss an example of AdS/CFT duality which arises in the context of type 0 string theory. The CFT on N coincident electric and magnetic D3-branes is argued to be stable for sufficiently weak `t Hooft coupling. It is suggested that its transition to instability at a critical coupling is related to singularity of planar diagrams.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX; Talk at Strings '99, Potsdam, German

Gauge/gravity correspondence in accelerating universe

We discuss time-dependent backgrounds of type IIB supergravity realizing gravitation duals of gauge theories formulated in de Sitter space-time as a tool of embedding de Sitter in a supergravity. We show that only the gravitational duals to non-conformal gauge theories are sensitive to a specific value of a Hubble parameter. We consider two nontrivial solutions of this type: a gravity dual to six-dimensional (1,1) little string theory, and to a four-dimensional cascading SU(N+M)xSU(N) supersymmetric gauge theory (related to fractional D3-branes on a singular conifold according to Klebanov et al), in accelerating universe. In both cases we argue that the IR singularity of the geometry is regulated by the expansion of the gauge theory background space-time.Comment: 13 pages, harvmac, v2: reference added, v3: D3,NS5 discussion improved, PRD versio

Entropy and Temperature of Black 3-Branes

We consider slightly non-extremal black 3-branes of type IIB supergravity and show that their Bekenstein-Hawking entropy agrees, up to a mysterious factor, with an entropy derived by counting non-BPS excitations of the Dirichlet 3-brane. These excitations are described in terms of the statistical mechanics of a 3+1 dimensional gas of massless open string states. This is essentially the classic problem of blackbody radiation. The blackbody temperature is related to the temperature of the Hawking radiation. We also construct a solution of type IIB supergravity describing a 3-brane with a finite density of longitudinal momentum. For extremal momentum-carrying 3-branes the horizon area vanishes. This is in agreement with the fact that the BPS entropy of the momentum-carrying Dirichlet 3-branes is not an extensive quantity.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, minor revisions. v3: version that appeared in PR

Scalar Absorption and the Breaking of the World Volume Conformal Invariance

We investigate a version of fixed scalars for non-dilatonic branes which correspond to dilatations of the brane world-volume. We obtain a cross-section whose world-volume interpretation falls out naturally from an investigation of the breaking of conformal invariance by the irrelevant Born-Infeld corrections to Yang-Mills theory. From the same irrelevant world-volume operator we obtain the leading correction to the cross-sections of minimal scalars. This correction can be obtained in supergravity via an improved matching of inner and outer solutions to the minimal wave equation.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures. Minor change

Absorption by Branes and Schwinger Terms in the World Volume Theory

We study how coincident Dirichlet 3-branes absorb incident gravitons polarized along their world volume. We show that the absorption cross-section is determined by the central term in the correlator of two stress-energy tensors. The existence of a non-renormalization theorem for this central charge in four-dimensional N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories shows that the leading term at low energies in the absorption cross-section is not renormalized. This guarantees that the agreement of the cross-section with semiclassical supergravity, found in earlier work, survives all loop corrections. The connection between absorption of gravitons polarized along the brane and Schwinger terms in the stress-energy correlators of the world volume theory holds in general. We explore this connection to deduce some properties of the stress-energy tensor OPE's for 2-branes and 5-branes in 11 dimensions, as well as for 5-branes in 10 dimensions.Comment: 13 pages, latex, minor changes, version to appear in Physics Letters

Thermodynamics of spinning D3-branes

Spinning black three-branes in type IIB supergravity are thermodynamically stable up to a critical value of the angular momentum density. Inside the region of thermodynamic stability, the free energy from supergravity is roughly reproduced by a naive model based on free N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory on the world-volume. The field theory model correctly predicts a limit on angular momentum density, but near this limit it does not reproduce the critical exponents one can compute from supergravity. Analogies with Bose condensation and modified matrix models are discussed, and a mean field theory improvement of the naive model is suggested which corrects the critical exponents.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figure, small improvement