Smooth Microstate Research Articles

A 4d non-BPS NS-NS microstate

We construct a two-parameter four-dimensional non-BPS NS-NS smooth microstate solution that asymptotes to flat spacetime with a linear dilaton in type II superstring theory. From the microscopic point of view, the background is made out of a certain number of decoupled (i.e. gs → 0) NS5 branes wrapping T3 × S1 × S1 with fundamental strings wrapping non-contractable cycles of S1 × S1 with integer momentum modes along them. We show that perturbative worldsheet theory in this background is given by a null-gauged WZW model. We also show that the consistency of the worldsheet theory imposes non-trivial constraints on the supergravity background.

New superstrata from three-dimensional supergravity

We find a two-parameter family of generalized superstrata that emerge as smooth, supersymmetric solutions in three-dimensional gauged supergravity coupled to additional scalar fields. This new family of generalized superstrata are smooth microstate geometries and may be thought of as supersymmetric Coulomb-branch extensions of the original superstrata in which the underlying supertube undergoes an elliptical deformation. These solutions had already been obtained numerically, and as series solutions, to the equations of motion, and some of them were conjectured to be supersymmetric. Here we prove the supersymmetry of an entire two-parameter family and we obtain a highly non-trivial analytic and smooth solution for a one-parameter limit in which the global symmetry of the metric is enhanced to SO(3). We also confirm that the other known families of microstrata are not supersymmetric. We conclude with a cursory analysis of some of the singular brane distributions that can be accessed from three-dimensional gauged supergravity while preserving the same supersymmetries as the superstratum, and therefore of the three-charge black hole.

Superstratum symbiosis

Superstrata are smooth horizonless microstate geometries for the supersymmetric D1-D5-P black hole in type IIB supergravity. In the CFT, “superstratum states” are defined to be the component of the supergraviton gas that is obtained by breaking the CFT into “|00〉-strands” and acting on each strand with the “small,” anomaly-free superconformal generators. We show that the recently-constructed supercharged superstrata represent a final and crucial component for the construction of the supergravity dual of a generic superstratum state and how the supergravity solution faithfully represents all the coherent superstratum states of the CFT. For the supergravity alone, this shows that generic superstrata do indeed fluctuate as functions of three independent variables. Smoothness of the complete supergravity solution also involves “coiffuring constraints” at second-order in the fluctuations and we describe how these lead to new predictions for three-point functions in the dual CFT. We use a hybrid of the original and supercharged superstrata to construct families of single-mode superstrata that still have free moduli after one has fixed the asymptotic charges of the system. We also study scalar wave perturbations in a particular family of such solutions and show that the mass gap depends on the free moduli. This can have interesting implications for superstrata at non-zero temperature.

Supercharging superstrata

We construct a new class of smooth horizonless microstate geometries of the supersymmetric D1-D5-P black hole in type IIB supergravity. We first work in the AdS3 × S3 decoupling limit and use the fermionic symmetries of the theory to generate new momentum carrying perturbations in the bulk that have an explicit CFT dual description. We then use the supergravity equations to calculate the backreaction of these perturbations and find the full non-linear solutions both in the asymptotically AdS and asymptotically flat case. These new geometries have a simpler structure than the previously known superstrata solutions.

A rough end for smooth microstate geometries

Supersymmetric microstate geometries with five non-compact dimensions have recently been shown by Eperon, Reall, and Santos (ERS) to exhibit a non-linear instability featuring the growth of excitations at an “evanescent ergosurface” of infinite redshift. We argue that this growth may be treated as adiabatic evolution along a family of exactly supersymmetric solutions in the limit where the excitations are Aichelburg-Sexl-like shockwaves. In the 2-charge system such solutions may be constructed explicitly, incorpo-rating full backreaction, and are in fact special cases of known microstate geometries. In a near-horizon limit, they reduce to Aichelburg-Sexl shockwaves in AdS3 × S3 propagating along one of the angular directions of the sphere. Noting that the ERS analysis is valid in the limit of large microstate angular momentum j, we use the above identification to interpret their instability as a transition from rare smooth microstates with large angular momentum to more typical microstates with smaller angular momentum. This entropic driving terminates when the angular momentum decreases to jsim sqrt{n_1{n}_5} where the density of microstates is maximal. We argue that, at this point, the large stringy corrections to such microstates will render them non-linearly stable. We identify a possible mechanism for this stabilization and detail an illustrative toy model.

Smooth Horizonless Geometries Deep Inside the Black-Hole Regime.

We construct the first family of horizonless supergravity solutions that have the same mass, charges, and angular momenta as general supersymmetric rotating D1-D5-P black holes in five dimensions. This family includes solutions with arbitrarily small angular momenta, deep within the regime of quantum numbers and couplings for which a large classical black hole exists. These geometries are well approximated by the black-hole solution, and in particular exhibit the same near-horizon throat. Deep in this throat, the black-hole singularity is resolved into a smooth cap. We also identify the holographically dual states in the N=(4,4) D1-D5 orbifold conformal field theory (CFT). Our solutions are among the states counted by the CFT elliptic genus, and provide examples of smooth microstate geometries within the ensemble of supersymmetric black-hole microstates.

Non-Abelian bubbles in microstate geometries

We find the first smooth microstate geometries with non-Abelian fields. The solutions constitute an extension of the BPS three-charge smooth microstates. These consist in general families of regular supersymmetric solutions with non-trivial topology, i.e. bubbles, of $\mathcal{N}=1$, $d=5$ Super-Einstein-Yang-Mills theory, having the asymptotic charges of a black hole or black ring but with no horizon. The non-Abelian fields make their presence at the very heart of the microstate structure: the physical size of the bubbles is affected by the non-Abelian topological charge they carry, which combines with the Abelian flux threading the bubbles to hold them up. Interestingly the non-Abelian fields carry a set of adjustable continuous parameters that do not alter the asymptotics of the solutions but modify the local geometry. This feature can be used to obtain a classically infinite number of microstate solutions with the asymptotics of a single black hole or black ring.

Smooth non-extremal D1-D5-P solutions as charged gravitational instantons

We present an alternative and more direct construction of the non-supersymmetric D1-D5-P supergravity solutions found by Jejjala, Madden, Ross and Titchener. We show that these solutions --- with all three charges and both rotations turned on --- can be viewed as a charged version of the Myers-Perry instanton. We present an inverse scattering construction of the Myers-Perry instanton metric in Euclidean five-dimensional gravity. The angular momentum bounds in this construction turn out to be precisely the ones necessary for the smooth microstate geometries. We add charges on the Myers-Perry instanton using appropriate SO(4,4) hidden symmetry transformations. The full construction can be viewed as an extension and simplification of a previous work by Katsimpouri, Kleinschmidt and Virmani.

Non-supersymmetric microstates of the MSW system

We present an analysis parallel to that of Giusto, Ross, and Saxena (arXiv:0708.3845) and construct a discrete family of non-supersymmetric microstate geometries of the Maldacena-Strominger-Witten system. The supergravity configuration in which we look for the smooth microstates is constructed using SO(4,4) dualities applied to an appropriate seed solution. The SO(4,4) approach offers certain technical advantages. Our microstate solutions are smooth in five dimensions, as opposed to all previously known non-supersymmetric microstates with AdS3 cores, which are smooth only in six dimensions. The decoupled geometries for our microstates are related to global AdS3 x S2 by spectral flows.

Doubly-fluctuating BPS solutions in six dimensions

Abstract We analyze the BPS solutions of minimal supergravity coupled to an anti-self-dual tensor multiplet in six dimensions and find solutions that fluctuate non-trivially as a function of two variables. We consider families of solutions coming from KKM monopoles fibered over Gibbons-Hawking metrics or, equivalently, non-trivial T 2 fibrations over an $ {{\mathbb{R}}^3} $ base. We find smooth microstate geometries that depend upon many functions of one variable, but each such function depends upon a different direction inside the T 2 so that the complete solution depends non-trivially upon the whole T 2. We comment on the implications of our results for the construction of a general superstratum.

Non-extremal black hole microstates: fuzzballs of fire or fuzzballs of fuzz?

Abstract We construct the first family of microstate geometries of near-extremal black holes, by placing metastable supertube probes inside certain scaling supersymmetric smooth microstate geometries. These fuzzballs differ from the classical black hole solution macroscopically at the horizon scale, and for certain probes the fluctuations between various fuzzballs will be visible as thermal noise far away from the horizon. We discuss whether these fuzzballs appear to infalling observers as fuzzballs of fuzz or as fuzzballs of fire. The existence of these solutions suggests that the singularity of non-extremal black holes is resolved all the way to the outer horizon and this “backwards in time” singularity resolution can shed light on the resolution of spacelike cosmological singularities.

Plumbing the abyss: black ring microstates

We construct the first smooth, horizonless ``microstate geometries'' that have the same charges, dipole charges and angular momenta as a BPS black ring whose horizon is macroscopic. These solutions have exactly the same geometry as black rings, except that the usual infinite throat is smoothly capped off at a very large depth. If the solutions preserve a U(1)x U(1) isometry, then this depth is limited by flux quantization but if this symmetry is broken then the throat can be made arbitrarily deep by tuning classical, geometric moduli. Interpreting these ``abysses'' (smooth microstate geometries of arbitrary depth) from the point of view of the AdS-CFT correspondence suggests two remarkable alternatives: either stringy effects can eliminate very large regions of a smooth low-curvature supergravity solution, or the D1-D5-P CFT has quantum critical points. The existence of solutions whose depth depends on moduli also enables us to define ``entropy elevators,'' and these provide a new tool for studying the entropy of BPS and near-BPS black holes.