Exact non-Abelian supertubes

Abstract

Supertubes are supersymmetric configurations in string theory in which branes are extending along a closed curve. For a supertube of codimension two, its dipole charge is characterized by the duality monodromy around the closed curve. When multiple codimension-2 supertubes are present, the monodromies around different supertubes can be non-commuting, namely non-Abelian. Non-Abelian configurations of supertubes are expected to play an important role in non-perturbative physics of string theory, especially black holes. In this paper, in the framework of five-dimensional supergravity, we construct exact solutions describing codimension-2 supertubes in three-dimensional space. We use an extension formula to construct a three-dimensional solution from a two-dimensional seed solution. The two-dimensional seed is an F-theory like configuration in which a torus is nontrivially fibered over a complex plane. In the first example, there is a stack of circular supertubes around which there is a non-trivial monodromy. In some cases this can be thought of as a microstate of a black hole in AdS2 × S2. The second example is an axi-symmetric solution with two stacks of circular supertubes with non-Abelian monodromies. In addition, there is a continuous distribution of charges on the symmetry axis.