Fermion Exchange between D-instantons

We define fermionic collective coordinates for type II-B Dirichlet instantons and discuss some effects of the associated zero modes within the dilute gas framework. We show that the standard rules for clustering of zero modes in the dilute limit, and the fermion exchange interactions follow from world-sheet Ward identities. Fermion exchange is strongly attractive at string scale distances, which makes the short distance Hagedorn singularity between instantons and anti-instantons even stronger

Rotated Branes and N=1 Duality

We consider configurations of rotated NS-branes leading to a family of four-dimensional N=1 super-QCD theories, interpolating between four-dimensional analogues of the Hanany-Witten vacua, and the Elitzur-Giveon-Kutasov configuration for N=1 duality. The rotation angle is the N=2 breaking parameter, the mass of the adjoint scalar in the N=2 vector multiplet. We add some comments on the relevance of these configurations as possible stringy proofs of N=1 duality

Multitrace AdS/CFT and Master Field Dynamics

We consider gauge theories with multitrace deformations in the context of certain AdS/CFT models with explicit breaking of conformal symmetry and supersymmetry. In particular, we study the standard four-dimensional confining model based on the D4-brane metric at finite temperature. We work in the self-consistent Hartree approximation, which becomes exact in the large-N limit and is equivalent to the AdS/CFT multitrace prescription that has been proposed in the literature. We show that generic multitrace perturbations have important effects on the phase structure of these models. Most notably they can induce new types of large-N first-order phase transitions

Softly Broken MQCD and the Theta Angle

We consider a family of non-supersymmetric MQCD five-brane configurations introduced by Witten, and discuss the dependence of the curves on the microscopic Theta angle and its relation with CP. We find evidence for a non-trivial spectral-flow of the curves (vacua) and for the level-crossing of adjacent curves at a particular value of the Theta angle, with spontaneous breaking of CP symmetry, providing an MQCD analog of the phase transitions in Theta proposed by 't Hooft

Momentum/Complexity Duality and the Black Hole Interior

We establish a version of the Momentum/Complexity (PC) duality between the rate of operator complexity growth and a radial component of bulk momentum for a test system falling into a black hole. In systems of finite entropy, our map remains valid for arbitrarily late times after scrambling. The asymptotic regime of linear complexity growth is associated to a frozen momentum in the interior of the black hole, measured with respect to a time foliation by extremal codimension-one surfaces which saturate without reaching the singularity. The detailed analysis in this paper uses the Volume-Complexity (VC) prescription and an infalling system consisting of a thin shell of dust, but the final PC duality formula should have a much wider degree of generality.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figure

Very Long Time Scales and Black Hole Thermal Equilibrium

We estimate the very long time behaviour of correlation functions in the presence of eternal black holes. It was pointed out by Maldacena (hep-th 0106112) that their vanishing would lead to a violation of a unitarity-based bound. The value of the bound is obtained from the holographic dual field theory. The correlators indeed vanish in a semiclassical bulk approximation. We trace the origin of their vanishing to the continuum energy spectrum in the presence of event horizons. We elaborate on the two very long time scales involved: one associated with the black hole and the other with a thermal gas in the vacuum background. We find that assigning a role to the thermal gas background, as suggested in the above work, does restore the compliance with a time-averaged unitarity bound. We also find that additional configurations are needed to explain the expected time dependence of the Poincar\'e recurrences and their magnitude. It is suggested that, while a semiclassical black hole does reproduce faithfully ``coarse grained'' properties of the system, additional dynamical features of the horizon may be necessary to resolve a finer grained information-loss problem. In particular, an effectively formed stretched horizon could yield the desired results.Comment: 30 pages, harvmac, 1 eps figur

On the stringy nature of winding modes in noncommutative thermal field theories

We show that thermal noncommutative field theories admit a version of `channel duality' reminiscent of open/closed string duality, where non-planar thermal loops can be replaced by an infinite tower of tree-level exchanges of effective fields. These effective fields resemble closed strings in three aspects: their mass spectrum is that of closed-string winding modes, their interaction vertices contain extra moduli, and they can be regarded as propagating in a higher-dimensional `bulk' space-time. In noncommutative models that can be embedded in a D-brane, we show the precise relation between the effective `winding fields' and closed strings propagating off the D-brane. The winding fields represent the coherent coupling of the infinite tower of closed-string oscillator states. We derive a sum rule that expresses this effective coupling in terms of the elementary couplings of closed strings to the D-brane. We furthermore clarify the relation between the effective propagating dimension of the winding fields and the true codimension of the D-brane

Small volume expansion of almost supersymmetric large N theories

We consider the small-volume dynamics of nonsupersymmetric orbifold and orientifold field theories defined on a three-torus, in a test of the claimed planar equivalence between these models and appropriate supersymmetric ``parent models". We study one-loop effective potentials over the moduli space of flat connections and find that planar equivalence is preserved for suitable averages over the moduli space. On the other hand, strong nonlinear effects produce local violations of planar equivalence at special points of moduli space. In the case of orbifold models, these effects show that the "twisted" sector dominates the low-energy dynamics.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures; added references, minor change

Fast Scramblers Of Small Size

We investigate various geometrical aspects of the notion of `optical depth' in the thermal atmosphere of black hole horizons. Optical depth has been proposed as a measure of fast-crambling times in such black hole systems, and the associated optical metric suggests that classical chaos plays a leading role in the actual scrambling mechanism. We study the behavior of the optical depth with the size of the system and find that AdS/CFT phase transitions with topology change occur naturally as the scrambler becomes smaller than its thermal length. In the context of detailed AdS/CFT models based on D-branes, T-duality implies that small scramblers are described in terms of matrix quantum mechanics.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures. Added reference