Aspects of holography of Taub-NUT- AdS4 spacetimes

Abstract

In this paper we consider aspects of the holographic interpretation of Taub-NUT-${\mathrm{AdS}}_{4}$. We review our earlier results which show that ${\mathrm{TNAdS}}_{4}$ gives rise to a holographic three-dimensional conformal fluid having constant vorticity. We then study the holographic relevance of the Misner string by considering bulk scalar fluctuations. The scalar fluctuations organize naturally into representations of the $SU(2)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\mathbb{R}$ isometry algebra. If we require the string's invisibility we obtain a Dirac-like quantization relating the frequency of the scalar field modes to the NUT charge. As the latter quantity determines the total vorticity flux of the boundary fluid, we argue that such an assumption allows for a holographic interpretation of ${\mathrm{TNAdS}}_{4}$ as a nondissipative superfluid whose excitations are quantized vortices. Alternatively, if we regard the Misner string as a physical object, as has recently been advocated for thermodynamically, the aforementioned quantization conditions are removed, and we find that ${\mathrm{TNAdS}}_{4}$ corresponds to a holographic fluid whose dissipative properties are probed as usual by the complex quasinormal modes of the bulk fluctuations. We show that such quasinormal modes are, perhaps surprisingly, organized into infinite-dimensional nonunitary representations of the isometry algebra.