Euclidean Black Hole Research Articles

The gravity dual of real-time CFT at finite temperature

We present a spherically symmetric aAdS gravity solution with Schwinger-Keldysh boundary condition dual to a CFT at finite temperature defined on a complex time contour. The geometry is built by gluing the exterior of a two-sided AdS Black Hole, the (aAdS) Einstein-Rosen wormhole, with two Euclidean black hole halves. These pieces are interpreted as the gravity duals of the two Euclidean β/2 segments in the SK path, each coinciding with a Hartle-Hawking-Maldacena (TFD) vacuum state, while the Lorentzian regions naturally describes the real-time evolution of the TFD doubled system.Within the context of Skenderis and van Rees real-time holographic prescription, the new solution should be compared to the Thermal AdS spacetime since both contribute to the gravitational path integral. In this framework, we compute the time ordered 2-pt functions of scalar CFT operators via a non-back-reacting Klein-Gordon field for both backgrounds and confront the results. When solving for the field we find that the gluing leads to a geometric realization of the Unruh trick via a completely holographic prescription. Interesting observations follow from leftlangle {mathcal{O}}_L{mathcal{O}}_Rrightrangle , which capture details of the entanglement of the (ground) state and the connectivity of the spacetime.

Stringy horizons II

We show that the spectrum of normalizable states on a Euclidean SL(2,R)/U(1) black hole exhibits a duality between oscillator states and wound strings. This duality generalizes the FZZ correspondence, which can be thought of as an identification between a normalizable mode of dilaton gravity and a mode of the tachyon with winding number one around the Euclidean time circle. It implies that normalizable states on a large Euclidean black hole have support at widely separated scales. In particular, localized states that are extended over the cap of the cigar (the Euclidian analog of the black hole atmosphere) have a component that is localized near the tip of the cigar (the analog of the stretched horizon). As a consequence of this duality, the states exhibit a transition as a function of radial excitation level. From the perspective of a low energy probe, low lying states are naturally thought of as oscillator states in the black hole atmosphere, while at large excitation level they are naturally described as wound strings. As the excitation level increases, the size of the states first decreases and then increases. This behavior is expected to be a general feature of black hole horizons in string theory.

The continuum limit of [formula omitted] spin chains

Building on our previous work for a2(2) and a3(2) we explore systematically the continuum limit of gapless aN−1(2) vertex models and spin chains. We find the existence of three possible regimes. Regimes I and II for a2n−1(2) are related with a2n−1(2) Toda, and described by n compact bosons. Regime I for a2n(2) is related with a2n(2) Toda and involves n compact bosons, while regime II is related instead with B(1)(0,n) super Toda, and involves in addition a single Majorana fermion. The most interesting is regime III, where non-compact degrees of freedom appear, generalising the emergence of the Euclidean black hole CFT in the a2(2) case. For a2n(2) we find a continuum limit made of n compact and n non-compact bosons, while for a2n−1(2) we find n compact and n−1 non-compact bosons. We also find deep relations between aN−1(2) in regime III and the gauged WZW models SO(N)/SO(N−1).

Deformations of GR and BH thermodynamics

In four space–time dimensions General Relativity can be non-trivially deformed. Deformed theories continue to describe two propagating degrees of freedom, as GR. We study Euclidean black hole thermodynamics of these deformations. We use the recently developed formulation that works with connections as well as certain matrices M of auxiliary fields. We show that the black hole entropy is given by one quarter of the horizon area as measured by the Lie algebra valued two-form MF, where F is the connection curvature. This coincides with the horizon area as measured by the metric only for the case of General Relativity.

Screening stringy horizons

It has been argued recently that string theory effects qualitatively modify the effective black hole geometry experienced by modes with radial momentum of order \(1/\sqrt{\alpha '}\). At tree level, these \({\alpha '}\) effects can be explicitly worked out in two-dimensional string theory and have a natural explanation in the T-dual description as coming from the integration of the zero mode of the linear dilaton, which yields a contribution that affects the scattering phase shift in a peculiar manner. It has also been argued that the phase-shift modification has its origin in a region of the moduli space that does not belong to the exterior black hole geometry, leading to the conclusion that at high energy the physics of the problem is better described by the dual model. Here, we elaborate on this argument. We consider the contribution of world-sheet instantons in the two-dimensional Euclidean black hole \(\sigma \)-model and study its influence on the phase shift at high energy.

Horizon strings and interior states of a black hole

We provide an explicit construction of classical strings that have endpoints on the horizons of the 2D Lorentzian black hole. We argue that this is a dual description of geodesics that are localized around the horizon which are the Lorentzian counterparts of the winding strings of the Euclidean black hole (the cigar geometry). Identifying these with the states of the black hole, we can expect that issues of black hole information loss can be posed sharply in terms of a fully quantizable string theory.

Stringy horizons

We argue that classical (α′) effects qualitatively modify the structure of Euclidean black hole horizons in string theory. While low energy modes experience the geometry familiar from general relativity, high energy ones see a rather different geometry, in which the Euclidean horizon can be penetrated by an amount that grows with the radial momentum of the probe. We discuss this in the exactly solvable $$ \mathrm{S}\mathrm{L}\left(2,\mathrm{\mathbb{R}}\right)/\mathrm{U}(1) $$ black hole, where it is a manifestation of the black hole/Sine-Liouville duality.

The staggered six-vertex model: Conformal invariance and corrections to scaling

We study the emergence of non-compact degrees of freedom in the low energy effective theory for a class of Z2-staggered six-vertex models. In the finite size spectrum of the vertex model this shows up through the appearance of a continuum of critical exponents. To analyze this part of the spectrum we derive a set of coupled nonlinear integral equations from the Bethe ansatz solution of the vertex model which allow to compute the energies of the system for a range of anisotropies and of the staggering parameter. The critical theory is found to be independent of the staggering. Its spectrum and density of states coincide with the SL(2,R)/U(1) Euclidean black hole conformal field theory which has been identified previously in the continuum limit of the vertex model for a particular ‘self-dual’ choice of the staggering. We also study the asymptotic behavior of subleading corrections to the finite size scaling and discuss our findings in the context of the conformal field theory.

Partition functions for quantum gravity, black holes, elliptic genera and Lie algebra homologies

There is a remarkable connection between quantum generating functions of field theory and formal power series associated with dimensions of chains and homologies of suitable Lie algebras. We discuss the homological aspects of this connection with its applications to partition functions of the minimal three-dimensional gravities in the space–time asymptotic to AdS 3 , which also describe the three-dimensional Euclidean black holes, the pure N = 1 supergravity, and a sigma model on N-fold generalized symmetric products. We also consider in the same context elliptic genera of some supersymmetric sigma models. These examples can be considered as a straightforward application of the machinery of modular forms and spectral functions (with values in the congruence subgroup of SL ( 2 , Z ) ) to partition functions represented by means of formal power series that encode Lie algebra properties.

Investigating stability of a class of black hole spacetimes under Ricci flow

We prove the linear stability of Schwarzschild–Tangherlini spacetimes and their anti-de Sitter counterparts under Ricci flow for a special class of perturbations. This is useful in the choice of suitable initial conditions in numerical Ricci-flow-based algorithms for obtaining new solutions to the Einstein equation when the cosmological constant is zero or negative. The Ricci flow is a first-order renormalization group (RG) flow in string theory, and its solutions are believed to approximate string field theory processes in certain cases. Thus, this result offers insights into the off-shell stability of these Euclidean black hole geometries in string theory, as well as in the Euclidean path integral approach to quantum gravity.

2DBlack hole and holographic renormalization group

In hep-th/0311177, the Large N renormalization group (RG) flows of a modified matrix quantum mechanics on a circle, capable of capturing effects of nonsingets, were shown to have fixed points with negative specific heat. The corresponding rescaling equation of the compactified matter field with respect to the RG scale, identified with the Liouville direction, is used to extract the two dimensional Euclidean black hole metric at the new type of fixed points. Interpreting the large N RG flows as flow velocities in holographic RG in two dimensions, the flow equation of the matter field around the black hole fixed point is shown to be of the same form as the radial evolution equation of the appropriate bulk scalar coupled to 2D black hole.

RELIC RADIATION FROM AN EVAPORATING BLACK HOLE

This paper presents a non-string-theoretic calculation of the microcanonical entropy of relic integer-spin Hawking radiation, at fixed total energy E, from an evanescent, neutral, non-rotating four-dimensional black hole. The only conserved macroscopic quantity is the total energy E which, for a black hole that evaporates completely, is the total energy of the relic radiation. Through a boundary-value approach, in which data for massless, integer-spin perturbations are set on initial and final space-like hypersurfaces, the statistical-mechanics problem becomes, in effect, a one-dimensional problem, with the "volume" of the system determined by the real part of the time separation at spatial infinity — the variable conjugate to the total energy. We count the number of field configurations on the final space-like hypersurface that have total energy E, assuming that initial perturbations are weak. We find that the density of states resembles the well-known Cardy formula. The Bekenstein–Hawking entropy is recovered if the real part of the asymptotic time separation is of the order of the semi-classical black-hole lifetime. We thereby obtain a statistical interpretation of black-hole entropy. Corrections to the microcanonical entropy are computed, and we find agreement with other approaches in terms of a logarithmic correction to the black-hole area law, which is universal (independent of black-hole parameters). This result depends crucially upon the discreteness of the energy levels. We discuss the similarities of our approach with the transition from the black-hole to the fundamental-string regime in the final stages of black-hole evaporation. In addition, we find that the squared coupling, g2, which regulates the transition from a black hole to a highly-excited string state, and vice versa, can be related to the angle, δ, in the complex-time plane, through which we continue analytically the time separation at spatial infinity. Thus, in this scenario, the strong-coupling regime corresponds to a Euclidean black hole, while the physical limit of a Lorentzian space–time (the limit as δ → 0+) corresponds to the weak-coupling regime. This resembles the transition of a black hole to a highly-excited string-like state, which subsequently decays into massless particles, thereby avoiding the naked singularity.

Orientifolds in 𝒩 = 2 Liouville theory and its mirror

We consider unoriented strings in the supersymmetric SL(2, )/U(1) coset, which describes the two-dimensional Euclidean black hole, and its mirror dual = 2 Liouville theory. We analyze the orientifolds of these theories from several complementary points of view: the parity symmetries of the worldsheet actions, descent from known AdS3 parities, and the modular bootstrap method (in some cases we can also check our results against known constraints coming from the conformal bootstrap method). Our analysis extends previous work on orientifolds in Liouville theory, the AdS3 and SU(2) WZW models and minimal models. Compared to these cases, we find that the orientifolds of the two dimensional Euclidean black hole exhibit new intriguing features. Our results are relevant for the study of orientifolds in the neighborhood of NS5-branes and for the engineering of four-dimensional chiral gauge theories and gauge theories with SO and Sp gauge groups with suitable configurations of D-branes and orientifolds. As an illustration, we discuss an example related to a configuration of D4-branes and O4-planes in the presence of two parallel fivebranes.

Gravitational instability of static spherically symmetric Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet black holes in five and six dimensions

Five and six dimensional static, spherically symmetric, asymptotically Euclidean black holes, are unstable under gravitational perturbations if their mass is lower than a critical value set by the string tension. The instability is due to the Gauss-Bonnet correction to Einstein's equations, and was found in a previous work on linear stability of Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet black holes with constant curvature horizons in arbitrary dimensions. We study the unstable cases and calculate the values of the critical masses. The results are relevant to the issue of black hole production in high energy collisions.

Supergravity description of spacetime instantons

We present and discuss BPS instanton solutions that appear in type II string theory compactifications on Calabi–Yau 3-folds. From an effective action point of view, these arise as finite action solutions of the Euclidean equations of motion in four-dimensional N = 2 supergravity coupled to tensor multiplets. As a solution generating technique we make use of the c-map, which produces instanton solutions from either Euclidean black holes or from Taub–NUT like geometries.

THE STOYANOVSKY–RIBAULT–TESCHNER MAP AND STRING SCATTERING AMPLITUDES

Recently, Ribault and Teschner pointed out the existence of a one-to-one correspondence between N-point correlation functions for the SL (2,ℂ)k/ SU (2) WZNW model on the sphere and certain set of 2N-2-point correlation functions in Liouville field theory. This result is based on a seminal work by Stoyanovsky. Here, we discuss the implications of this correspondence focusing on its application to string theory on curved backgrounds. For instance, we analyze how the divergences corresponding to worldsheet instantons in AdS3 can be understood as arising from the insertion of the dual screening operator in the Liouville theory side. We also study the pole structure of N-point functions in the 2D Euclidean black hole and its holographic meaning in terms of the Little String Theory. This enables us to interpret the correspondence between CFT's as encoding a LSZ-type reduction procedure. Furthermore, we discuss the scattering amplitudes violating the winding number conservation in those backgrounds and provide a formula connecting such amplitudes with observables in Liouville field theory. Finally, we study the WZNW correlation functions in the limit k → 0 and show that, at the point k = 0, the Stoyanovsky–Ribault–Teschner dictionary turns out to be in agreement with the FZZ conjecture at a particular point of the space of parameters where the Liouville central charge becomes cL = -2. This result makes contact with recent studies on the dynamical tachyon condensation in closed string theory.

The charged black hole/string transition

We generalize the discussion of hep-th/0509170 to charged black holes. For the two dimensional charged black hole, which is described by an exactly solvable worldsheet theory, a transition from the black hole to the string phase occurs when the Hawking temperature of the black hole reaches a limiting value, the temperature of free strings with the same mass and charge. At this point a tachyon winding around Euclidean time in the Euclidean black hole geometry, which has a non-zero condensate, becomes massless at infinity, and the horizon of the black hole is infinitely smeared. For Reissner-Nordstrom black holes in d\ge 4 dimensions, the exact worldsheet CFT is not known, but we propose that it has similar properties. We check that the leading order solution is in good agreement with this proposal, and discuss the expected form of \alpha' corrections.

D-brane propagation in two-dimensional black hole geometries

We study propagation of D0-brane in two-dimensional Lorentzian black hole backgrounds by the method of boundary conformal field theory of SL(2,R)/U(1) supercoset at level k. Typically, such backgrounds arise as near-horizon geometries of k coincident non-extremal NS5-branes, where 1/k measures curvature of the backgrounds in string unit and hence size of string worldsheet effects. At classical level, string worldsheet effects are suppressed and D0-brane propagation in the Lorentzian black hole geometry is simply given by the Wick rotation of D1-brane contour in the Euclidean black hole geometry. Taking account of string worldsheet effects, boundary state of the Lorentzian D0-brane is formally constructible via Wick rotation from that of the Euclidean D1-brane. However, the construction is subject to ambiguities in boundary conditions. We propose exact boundary states describing the D0-brane, and clarify physical interpretations of various boundary states constructed from different boundary conditions. As it falls into the black hole, the D0-brane radiates off to the horizon and to the infinity. From the boundary states constructed, we compute physical observables of such radiative process. We find that part of the radiation to infinity is in effective thermal distribution at the Hawking temperature. We also find that part of the radiation to horizon is in the Hagedorn distribution, dominated by massive, highly non-relativistic closed string states, much like the tachyon matter. Remarkably, such distribution emerges only after string worldsheet effects are taken exactly into account. From these results, we observe that nature of the radiation distribution changes dramatically across the conifold geometry k=1 (k=3 for the bosonic case), exposing the `string - black hole transition' therein.

Finite temperature effective action,AdS5black holes, and1/Nexpansion

We propose a phenomenological matrix model to study string theory in AdS_5 \times S_5 in the canonical ensemble. The model reproduces all the known qualitative features of the theory. In particular, it gives a simple effective potential description of Euclidean black hole nucleation and the tunnelling between thermal AdS and the big black hole. It also has some interesting predictions. We find that there exists a critical temperature at which the Euclidean small black hole undergoes a Gross-Witten phase transition. We identify the phase transition with the Horowitz-Polchinski point where the black hole horizon size becomes comparable to the string scale. The appearance of the Hagedorn divergence of thermal AdS is due to the merger of saddle points corresponding to the Euclidean small black hole and thermal AdS. The merger can be described in terms of a cusp (A_3) catastrophe and divergences at the perturbative string level are smoothed out at finite string coupling using standard techniques of catastrophe theory.

Aspects of WZW models at critical level

AbstractWe consider non‐compact WZW models at critical level (equal to the dual Coxeter number) as tensionless limits of gravitational backgrounds in string theory. Special emphasis is placed on the Euclidean black hole coset SL(2,R)k/U(1) when k = 2. In this limit gravity decouples in the form of a Liouville field with infinite background charge and the world‐sheet symmetry of the model becomes a truncated version of W∞ without Virasoro generator. This is regarded as manifestation of Langlands duality for the SL(2,R)k current algebra that relates small with large values of the level in the two extreme limits. However, the physical interpretation of the SL(2,R)k/U(1) coset model below the self‐dual value k = 3 remains elusive including the non‐conformal theory at k = 2.