15 research outputs found
Imaginary Soaring Branes: A Hidden Feature of Non-Extremal Solutions
A key property of many BPS solutions of supergravity is the fact that certain
probe branes placed in these solutions feel no force, essentially because
electric repulsion and gravitational attraction balance one another. In this
letter we show that the existence of brane probes that feel no force is also a
property of many non-supersymmetric, non-extremal solutions of supergravity.
This observation requires a new class of brane probes that move with constant
velocity along one or several internal directions of the solution but the
zero-force condition that makes the branes "float along" at constant speed, or
soar, requires the velocity to be purely imaginary. While these probes are not
physical, their no-force condition implies the existence of hidden relations
between the warp factors and electric potentials of non-extremal solutions in
certain duality frames, and this provides insight into the structure of such
solutions and can greatly simplify the search for them.Comment: 14 pages LeTe
Supersymmetric Charged Clouds in AdS_5
We consider supersymmetric holographic flows that involve background gauge
fields dual to chemical potentials in the boundary field theory. We use a
consistent truncation of gauged N=8 supergravity in five dimensions and we give
a complete analysis of the supersymmetry conditions for a large family of
flows. We examine how the well-known supersymmetric flow between two fixed
points is modified by the presence of the chemical potentials and this yields a
new, completely smooth, solution that interpolates between two global AdS
spaces of different radii and with different values of the chemical potential.
We also examine some black-hole-like singular flows and a new
non-supersymmetric black hole solution. We comment on the interpretation of our
new solutions in terms of giant gravitons and discuss the implications of our
work for finding black-hole solutions in AdS geometries.Comment: 31 pages, 6 figures; minor corrections, updated reference
Supergravity Solutions from Floating Branes
We solve the equations of motion of five-dimensional ungauged supergravity
coupled to three U(1) gauge fields using a floating-brane Ansatz in which the
electric potentials are directly related to the gravitational warp factors. We
find a new class of non-BPS solutions, that can be obtained linearly starting
from an Euclidean four-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell base. This class - the
largest known so far - reduces to the BPS and almost-BPS solutions in certain
limits. We solve the equations explicitly when the base space is given by the
Israel-Wilson metric, and obtain solutions describing non-BPS D6 and anti-D6
branes kept in equilibrium by flux. We also examine the action of spectral flow
on solutions with an Israel-Wilson base and show that it relates these
solutions to almost-BPS solutions with a Gibbons-Hawking base.Comment: 24 pages, 1 figur
The information paradox: A pedagogical introduction
The black hole information paradox is a very poorly understood problem. It is
often believed that Hawking's argument is not precisely formulated, and a more
careful accounting of naturally occurring quantum corrections will allow the
radiation process to become unitary. We show that such is not the case, by
proving that small corrections to the leading order Hawking computation cannot
remove the entanglement between the radiation and the hole. We formulate
Hawking's argument as a `theorem': assuming `traditional' physics at the
horizon and usual assumptions of locality we will be forced into mixed states
or remnants. We also argue that one cannot explain away the problem by invoking
AdS/CFT duality. We conclude with recent results on the quantum physics of
black holes which show the the interior of black holes have a `fuzzball'
structure. This nontrivial structure of microstates resolves the information
paradox, and gives a qualitative picture of how classical intuition can break
down in black hole physics.Comment: 38 pages, 7 figures, Latex (Expanded form of lectures given at CERN
for the RTN Winter School, Feb 09), typo correcte
Black Holes as Effective Geometries
Gravitational entropy arises in string theory via coarse graining over an
underlying space of microstates. In this review we would like to address the
question of how the classical black hole geometry itself arises as an effective
or approximate description of a pure state, in a closed string theory, which
semiclassical observers are unable to distinguish from the "naive" geometry. In
cases with enough supersymmetry it has been possible to explicitly construct
these microstates in spacetime, and understand how coarse-graining of
non-singular, horizon-free objects can lead to an effective description as an
extremal black hole. We discuss how these results arise for examples in Type II
string theory on AdS_5 x S^5 and on AdS_3 x S^3 x T^4 that preserve 16 and 8
supercharges respectively. For such a picture of black holes as effective
geometries to extend to cases with finite horizon area the scale of quantum
effects in gravity would have to extend well beyond the vicinity of the
singularities in the effective theory. By studying examples in M-theory on
AdS_3 x S^2 x CY that preserve 4 supersymmetries we show how this can happen.Comment: Review based on lectures of JdB at CERN RTN Winter School and of VB
at PIMS Summer School. 68 pages. Added reference