Spectral flow, and the spectrum of multicenter solutions

Abstract

We discuss ``spectral-flow'' coordinate transformations that take asymptotically four-dimensional solutions into other asymptotically four-dimensional solutions. We find that spectral flow can relate smooth three-charge solutions with a multicenter Taub-NUT base to solutions where one or several Taub-NUT centers are replaced by two-charge supertubes, and vice versa. We further show that multiparameter spectral flows can map such Taub-NUT centers to more singular centers that are either D2-D0 or pure D0-brane sources. Since supertubes can depend on arbitrary functions, we establish that the moduli space of smooth horizonless black-hole microstate solutions is classically of infinite dimension. We also use the physics of supertubes to argue that some multicenter solutions that appear to be bound states from a four-dimensional perspective are in fact not bound states when considered from a five- or six-dimensional perspective.