AdS Supergravity Research Articles

Near-horizon geometries and black hole thermodynamics in higher-derivative AdS5 supergravity

Higher-derivative corrections in the AdS/CFT correspondence allow us to capture finer details of the dual CFT and to explore the holographic dictionary beyond the infinite N and strong coupling limits. Following an effective field theory approach, we investigate extremal AdS black hole solutions in five-dimensional supergravity with higher-derivative corrections. We provide a general analysis of near-horizon geometries of rotating extremal black holes and show how to obtain their corresponding charges and chemical potentials. We discuss the near-horizon solutions of the two-derivative theory, which we write using a novel parametrization that eases our computation of the higher-derivative corrections. The charges and thermodynamic properties of the black hole are computed while clarifying the ambiguities in their definitions. The charges and potentials turn out to satisfy a near-horizon version of the first law of thermodynamics whose interpretation we make clear. In the supersymmetric case, the results are shown to match the field theory prediction as well as previous results obtained from the on-shell action.

Chiral Loop Quantum Supergravity and Black Hole Entropy

Recent work has shown that local supersymmetry on a spacetime boundary in N-extended AdS supergravity in chiral variables implies coupling to a boundary OSp(N|2)C super Chern–Simons theory. Consequently there has been a proposal to define and calculate the entropy S for the boundary, in the supersymmetric version of loop quantum gravity, for the minimal case N=1, via this super Chern–Simons theory. We give an overview of how supergravity can be treated in loop quantum gravity. We review the calculation of the dimensions of the quantum state spaces of UOSp(1|2) super Chern–Simons theory with punctures, and its analytical continuation, for the fixed quantum super area of the surface, to OSp(1|2)C. The result is S=aH/4 for large (super) areas. Lower order corrections can also be determined. We begin also a discussion of the statistical mechanics of the surface degrees of freedom by calculating the grand canonical partition function at zero chemical potential. This is a new result.

Asymptotic dynamics of three dimensional supergravity and higher spin gravity revisited

We reconsider the Hamiltonian reduction of the action for three dimensional AdS supergravity and W3 higher spin AdS gravity in the Chern-Simons formulation under asymptotically anti-de Sitter boundary conditions. We show that the reduction gives two copies of chiral bosons on the boundary. In particular, we take into account the holonomy of the Chern-Simons connection which manifests itself as zero mode of the momentum of the boundary chiral boson. We provide an equivalent formulation of the boundary action which we claim to be the geometric action on symplectic leaves of a (super-)Virasoro or a higher spin WN Poisson manifold in the case of supergravity or higher spin gravity respectively, where the intersection of leaves (given in terms of leaves representatives) can be identified as the bulk holonomy. This concludes the extension to non-linear algebras where the notion of coadjoint representation is not well-defined. The boundary Hamiltonian depends on a choice of boundary conditions and is equivalent to the Schwarzian action for corresponding Brown-Henneaux boundary conditions. We make this connection explicit in the extended supersymmetric case. Moreover, we discuss the geometric action in the case of W3 AdS3 gravity in both mathfrak{sl} (3) highest weight representations based on principal and diagonal mathfrak{sl} (2) embeddings.

Mixed moduli in 3d mathcal{N} = 4 higher-genus quivers

We analyze exactly marginal deformations of 3d mathcal{N} = 4 Lagrangian gauge theories, especially mixed-branch operators with both electric and magnetic charges. These mixed-branch moduli can either belong to products of electric and magnetic current supermultiplets, or be single-trace (non-factorizable). Apart from some exceptional quivers that have additional moduli, 3d mathcal{N} = 4 theories described by genus g quivers with nonabelian unitary gauge groups have exactly g single-trace mixed moduli, which preserve the global flavour symmetries. This partly explains why only linear and circular quivers have known AdS4 supergravity duals. Indeed, for g > 1, AdS4 gauged supergravities cannot capture the entire g-dimensional moduli space even if one takes into account the quantization moduli of boundary conditions. Likewise, in a general Lagrangian theory, we establish (using the superconformal index) that the number of single-trace mixed moduli is bounded below by the genus of a graph encoding how nonabelian gauge groups act on hypermultiplets.

Pure supersymmetric AdS and the Swampland

We point out that pure supergravity theories in AdS with enough supersymmetry lead, upon taking the large radius limit, to flat space quantum gravities with a nonperturbatively exact global symmetry, and are therefore in the Swampland. The argument applies to any AdS supergravity with gauged R-symmetry group, including truncations of most well known examples, such as AdS5 without the S5 or AdS4 without the S7. This demonstrates that extreme scale separation, at least with enough supersymmetry, is not realizable. Moreover pure AdS theories are also in conflict with some other Swampland principles including the Weak Gravity Conjecture and the (generalized) Distance Conjecture.

ABJM at finite N via 4d supergravity

We apply the conjecture of [1] for gravitational building blocks to the effective supergravity description of M-theory on S7/ℤk. Utilizing known localization results for the holographically dual ABJM theory, we determine a complete tower of higher derivative corrections to the AdS4 supergravity and a further set of quantum corrections. This uniquely fixes the gravitational block, leading to holographic predictions for a number of exact ABJM observables, excluding only constant and non-perturbative corrections in the gauge group rank N. The predicted S3 partition function is an Airy function that reproduces previous results and generalizes them to include arbitrary squashing and mass deformations/R-charge assignments. The topologically twisted and superconformal indices are instead products of two different Airy functions, in agreement with direct numeric calculations in the unrefined limit of the former object. The general fixed-point formula for an arbitrary supersymmetric background is similarly given as a product of Airy functions.

Comments on non-Abelian T-duals and their holographic description

We present three different Type IIB AdS4 Supergravity solutions, derived using the electrostatic-like problem formalism which preserves 8 Poincaré Supercharges. Two of these solutions correspond to the Abelian and non-Abelian T-duals of a Type IIA background, obtained from the dimensional reduction of 11D AdS×4S7 Supergravity. The third solution is a new background with some special properties. We compute the Page charges in each case, and provide brane set-up descriptions of the geometries. Also, we argue that the non-Abelian T-dual can be understood as a zoom-in of a more general background with a well defined holographic dual.

Toward black hole entropy in chiral loop quantum supergravity

Recently, many geometric aspects of $\mathcal{N}$-extended AdS supergravity in chiral variables have been encountered and clarified. In particular, if the theory is supposed to be invariant under SUSY transformations also on boundaries, the boundary term has to be the action of a $\mathrm{OSp}(\mathcal{N}|2)_{\mathbb{C}}$ super Chern-Simons theory, and particular boundary conditions must be met. Based on this, we propose a way to calculate an entropy $S$ for surfaces, presumably including black hole horizons, in the supersymmetric version of loop quantum gravity for the minimal case $\mathcal{N}=1$. It proceeds in analogy to the non-supersymmetric theory, by calculating dimensions of quantum state spaces of the super Chern-Simons theory with punctures, for fixed quantum (super) area of the surface. We find $S = a_H/4$ for large areas and determine the subleading correction. Due to the non-compactness of $\mathrm{OSp}(1|2)_{\mathbb{C}}$ and the corresponding difficulties with the Chern-Simons quantum theory, we use analytic continuation from the Verlinde formula for a compact real form, $\mathrm{UOSp}(1|2)$, in analogy to work by Noui et al. This also entails studying some properties of $\mathrm{OSp}(1|2)_{\mathbb{C}}$ representations that we have not found elsewhere in the literature.

Black holes with topological charges in Chern-Simons AdS5 supergravity

We study static black hole solutions with locally spherical horizons coupled to non-Abelian field in mathcal{N} = 4 Chern-Simons AdS5 supergravity. They are governed by three parameters associated to the mass, axial torsion and amplitude of the internal soliton, and two ones to the gravitational hair. They describe geometries that can be a global AdS space, naked singularity or a (non-)extremal black hole. We analyze physical properties of two inequivalent asymptotically AdS solutions when the spatial section at radial infinity is either a 3-sphere or a projective 3-space. An important feature of these 3-parametric solutions is that they possess a topological structure including two SU(2) solitons that wind nontrivially around the black hole horizon, as characterized by the Pontryagin index. In the extremal black hole limit, the solitons’ strengths match and a soliton-antisoliton system unwinds. That limit admits both non-BPS and BPS configurations. For the latter, the pure gauge and non-pure gauge solutions preserve 1/2 and 1/16 of the original supersymmetries, respectively. In a general case, we compute conserved charges in Hamiltonian formalism, finding many similarities with standard supergravity black holes.

Holst-MacDowell-Mansouri action for (extended) supergravity with boundaries and super Chern-Simons theory

In this article, the Cartan geometric approach toward (extended) supergravity in the presence of boundaries will be discussed. In particular, based on new developments in this field, we will derive the Holst variant of the MacDowell-Mansouri action for mathcal{N} = 1 and mathcal{N} = 2 pure AdS supergravity in D = 4 for arbitrary Barbero-Immirzi parameters. This action turns out to play a crucial role in context of boundaries in the framework of supergravity if one imposes supersymmetry invariance at the boundary. For the mathcal{N} = 2 case, it follows that this amounts to the introduction of a θ-topological term to the Yang-Mills sector which explicitly depends on the Barbero-Immirzi parameter. This shows the close connection between this parameter and the θ-ambiguity of gauge theory.We will also discuss the chiral limit of the theory, which turns out to possess some very special properties such as the manifest invariance of the resulting action under an enlarged gauge symmetry. Moreover, we will show that demanding supersymmetry invariance at the boundary yields a unique boundary term corresponding to a super Chern-Simons theory with OSp( mathcal{N} |2) gauge group. In this context, we will also derive boundary conditions that couple boundary and bulk degrees of freedom and show equivalence to the results found in the D’Auria-Fré approach in context of the non-chiral theory. These results provide a step towards of quantum description of supersymmetric black holes in the framework of loop quantum gravity.

Mathcal{N} = 2 AdS4 supergravity, holography and Ward identities

We develop in detail the holographic framework for an mathcal{N} = 2 pure AdS supergravity model in four dimensions, including all the contributions from the fermionic fields and adopting the Fefferman-Graham parametrization. We work in the first order formalism, where the full superconformal structure can be kept manifest in principle, even if only a part of it is realized as a symmetry on the boundary, while the remainder has a non-linear realization. Our study generalizes the results presented in antecedent literature and includes a general discussion of the gauge-fixing conditions on the bulk fields which yield the asymptotic symmetries at the boundary. We construct the corresponding super- conformal currents and show that they satisfy the related Ward identities when the bulk equations of motion are imposed. Consistency of the holographic setup requires the super- AdS curvatures to vanish at the boundary. This determines, in particular, the expression of the super-Schouten tensor of the boundary theory, which generalizes the purely bosonic Schouten tensor of standard gravity by including gravitini bilinears. The same applies to the superpartner of the super-Schouten tensor, the conformino. Furthermore, the vanishing of the supertorsion poses general constraints on the sources of the three-dimensional boundary conformal field theory and requires that the super-Schouten tensor is endowed with an antisymmetric part proportional to a gravitino-squared term.

Simplicity of AdS supergravity at one loop

We demonstrate the simplicity of AdS5× S5 IIB supergravity at one loop level, by studying non-planar holographic four-point correlators in Mellin space. We develop a systematic algorithm for constructing one-loop Mellin amplitudes from the tree-level data, and obtain a simple closed form answer for the leftlangle {mathcal{O}}_2^{SG}{mathcal{O}}_2^{SG}{mathcal{O}}_p^{SG}{mathcal{O}}_p^{SG}rightrangle correlators. The structure of this expression is remarkably simple, containing only simultaneous poles in the Mellin variables. We also study the flat space limit of the Mellin amplitudes, which reproduces precisely the IIB supergravity one-loop amplitude in ten dimensions. Our results provide nontrivial evidence for the persistence of the hidden conformal symmetry at one loop.

Chern-Simons supergravity on supergroup manifolds

We construct N=1 d=3 AdS supergravity within the group manifold approach and compare it with Achucarro-Townsend Chern-Simons formulation of the same theory. We clarify the relation between the off-shell super gauge transformations of the Chern- Simons theory and the off-shell worldvolume supersymmetry transformations of the group manifold action. We formulate the Achucarro-Townsend model in a double supersymmetric action where the Chern-Simons theory with a supergroup gauge symmetry is constructed on a supergroup manifold. This framework is useful to establish a correspondence of degrees of freedom and auxiliary fields between the two descriptions of d=3 supergravity.

AdS3 four-point functions from frac{1}{8} -BPS states

We compute four-point functions in the Heavy-Heavy-Light-Light limit involving a large family of frac{1}{8} -BPS heavy states whose dual supergravity solutions are explicitly known, avoiding the use of Witten diagrams. This is achieved by using the AdS/CFT dictionary of type IIB supergravity on AdS3 × S3 × ℳ4 that maps supersymmetric heavy operators whose conformal dimension is the order of the central charge to explicit asymp-totically AdS supergravity solutions. Using the Ward Identities for the generators of the mathcal{N}=left(4,4right) superconformalSU(2)Kac-Moodyalgebra,wecanrelateallofthesefour-point functions to each other and to other known four-point functions involving frac{1}{4} -BPS heavy states, furnishing non-trivial checks of the computations. Finally, the Ward Identities can be employed to reconstruct the all-light four-point functions, providing the first holographic correlators of single-trace operators computed in AdS3 involving frac{1}{8} -BPS operators.

Unconventional supersymmetry at the boundary of AdS4 supergravity

In this paper we perform, in the spirit of the holographic correspondence, a particular asymptotic limit of mathcal{N}=2 , AdS4 supergravity to mathcal{N}=2 supergravity on a locally AdS3 boundary. Our boundary theory enjoys OSp(2|2) × SO(1,2) invariance and is shown to contain the D = 3 super-Chern Simons OSp(2|2) theory considered in [1] and featuring “unconventional local supersymmetry”. The model constructed in that reference describes the dynamics of a spin-1/2 Dirac field in the absence of spin 3/2 gravitini and was shown to be relevant for the description of graphene, near the Dirac points, for specific spatial geometries. Our construction yields the model in [1] with a specific prescription on the parameters. In this framework the Dirac spin-1/2 fermion originates from the radial components of the gravitini in D = 4.

Quantum gravity from conformal field theory

We bootstrap loop corrections to AdS5 supergravity amplitudes by enforcing the consistency of the known classical results with the operator product expansion of mathcal{N} = 4 super Yang-Mills theory. In particular this yields much new information on the spectrum of double-trace operators which can then be used, in combination with superconformal symmetry and crossing symmetry, to obtain a prediction for the one-loop amplitude for four graviton multiplets in AdS. This in turn yields further new results on subleading O(1/N4) corrections to certain double-trace anomalous dimensions.

On a five-dimensional Chern–Simons AdS supergravity without gravitino

Based on recent discussions on the so-called unconventional supersymmetry, we propose a 5D Chern–Simons AdS-N-SUGRA formulation without gravitino fields and show that a residual local SUSY is preserved. We explore the properties of CS theories to find a solution to the field equations in a 5D manifold. With a Randall–Sundrum-type ansatz, we show that this particular dimensional reduction is compatible with SUSY, and some classes of 4D solutions are then analyzed.

Holographic 4-point correlators with heavy states

The AdS/CFT duality maps supersymmetric heavy operators with conformal dimension of the order of the central charge to asymptotically AdS supergravity solutions. We show that by studying the quadratic fluctuations around such backgrounds it is possible to derive the 4-point correlators of two light and two heavy states in the supergravity approximation. We provide an explicit example in the AdS3 setup relevant for the duality with the D1-D5 CFT. Contrary to previously studied examples, the supergravity correlator derived in this work differs from the result obtained at the CFT orbifold point. Our method bypasses the difficulties of applying the standard Witten’s diagrams approach to correlators with operators of large conformal dimension and also avoids some technical steps that have made the computation of dynamical 4-point correlators in the AdS3/CFT2 context unfeasible until now.

N=4 supersymmetric BMS3 algebras from asymptotic symmetry analysis

We consider three dimensional $N=4$ flat supergravity, with an abelian R-symmetry enhancing the gravitational phase space. We obtain the field configuration whose asymptotic symmetries at null infinity coincide with the centrally extended $N=4$ super Bondi-Metzner-Sachs (BMS) algebra .The killing spinors for this generic configuration are obtained together with the energy bounds imposed by supersymmetry. It is explicitly shown that the same algebra can be obtained as a flat (AdS radius $\rightarrow \infty$ ) limit of the combined $(2,0)$ and $(0,2)$ sectors of AdS supergravity.

Higher-spin charges in Hamiltonian form. II. Fermi fields

We build the asymptotic higher-spin charges associated with “improper” gauge transformations for fermionic higher-spin gauge fields on Anti de Sitter backgrounds of arbitrary dimension. This is achieved within the canonical formalism. We consider massless fields of spin s+1/2, described by a symmetric spinor-tensor of rank s in the Fang-Fronsdal approach. We begin from a detailed analysis of the spin 5/2 example, for which we cast the Fang-Fronsdal action in Hamiltonian form, we derive the charges and we propose boundary conditions on the canonical variables that secure their finiteness. We then extend the computation of charges and the characterisation of boundary conditions to arbitrary half-integer spin. Our construction generalises to higher-spin fermionic gauge fields the known Hamiltonian derivation of supercharges in AdS supergravity.