We study non-BPS black hole solutions to ungauged supergravity with 8 supercharges coupled to vector multiplets in four and five dimensions. We identify a large class of five dimensional non-BPS solutions, which we call "almost BPS", that are supersymmetric on local patches and satisfy a first order flow governed by harmonic functions. By dimensional reduction, they give rise to new non-BPS solutions in four dimensions. These solutions allow for some nontrivial asymptotic moduli and multiple centres, similar to their globally supersymmetric cousins. We explicitly discuss a single centre and a two centre example.
We describe the ``action-angle'' integrable system underlying the structure of double-extremal black holes. This implies the existence of a canonical transformation from BPS to non-BPS black holes. We give examples of such canonical transformation for STU and for E(7(7))-invariant black holes
In the light of recent studies of BPS triple junctions in the Wess-Zumino model we describe techniques to construct infinite lattices using similar junctions. It is shown that whilst these states are only approximately locally BPS they are nevertheless stable to small perturbations, giving a metastable tiling of the plane.
We derive the Smarr formula for a five-dimensional spacetime which has a magnetic "bolt" in its center and is asymptotically R^(3,1) x S^1. Supersymmetry - and so the BPS-bound - is broken by the holonomy. We show how each topological feature of a space-like hypersurface enters the mass formula and which ones in particular give rise to the violation of the BPS-bound.
A key feature of BPS multi-center solutions is that the equations controlling the positions of these centers are not renormalized as one goes from weak to strong coupling. In particular, this means that brane probes can capture the same information as the fully back-reacted supergravity solution. We investigate this non-renormalization property for non-supersymmetric, extremal "almost-BPS" solutions at intermediate coupling when one of the centers is considered as a probe in the background created by the other centers. We find that despite the lack of supersymmetry, the probe action reproduces…
We develop the thermodynamics of black holes in AdS$_4$ and AdS$_7$ near their BPS limit. In each setting we study the two distinct deformations orthogonal to the BPS surface as well as their nontrivial interplay with each other and with BPS properties. Our results illuminate recent microscopic calculations of the BPS entropy. We show that these microscopic computations can be leveraged to also describe the near BPS regime, by generalizing the boundary conditions imposed on states.
Motivated by recent studies of supersymmetric black holes, we revisit the phase diagram of AdS black holes, whether BPS or not, with particular emphasis on the role of rotation. We develop BPS thermodynamics systematically and, in many explicit examples, we study its striking similarities with more familiar AdS black holes, as well as some differences. We highlight an important fugacity that preserves BPS saturation but is not captured by the supersymmetric index.
[abridged version] We study extremal solutions arising in M-theory compactifications on Calabi-Yau threefolds, focussing on non-BPS attractors for their importance in relation to the Weak Gravity Conjecture. In the low-energy/field theory limit one obtains minimal N=2, D=5 supergravity coupled to Abelian vector multiplets. By making use of the effective black hole potential formalism with Lagrange multipliers and of the Attractor Mechanism, and focussing on two-moduli complete intersection (CICY) or toric hypersurface (THCY) Calabi-Yau threefolds, we investigate the possible non-uniqueness of …
In this note we show that the entropy of BPS, rotating, electrically charged AdS$_7 \times S^4$ black holes can be obtained by an extremization principle involving a particular combination of anomaly coefficients of the six-dimensional $\mathcal{N} = (2, 0)$ theory. This result extends our previous finding for BPS, rotating AdS$_5 \times S^5$ black holes.
We study the BPS and non BPS black attractors in 7D N=2 supergravity embedded in 11D M-theory compactified on K3. Combining Kahler and complex moduli in terms of SO(3) representations, we build the Dalbeault like (DL) basis for the second cohomology of K3 and set up the fundamental relations of the special "hyperKahler" geometry of the underlying moduli space of the 7D theory. We study the attractor eqs of the 7D black branes by using the method of the criticality of the effective potential and also by using the extension of the so called 4D new attractor approach to 7D N=2 supergravity. A com…
We construct extremal, spherically symmetric black hole solutions to 4D supergravity with charge assignments that preclude BPS-saturation. In particular, we determine the ground state energy as a function of charges and moduli. We find that the mass of the non-BPS black hole remains that of a marginal bound state of four basic constituents throughout the entire moduli space and that there is always a non-zero gap above the BPS bound.
We show that the 1/8 BPS condition for composite stationary black holes can be rewritten as a first order system of differential equations associated to the nilpotent orbit in which lie the Noether charges of the black holes. Solving these equations, we prove that the most general 1/8 BPS black hole composites are solutions of the N=2 truncation of the theory associated to the quaternions. This system of first order differential equations generalises to the non-BPS solutions with a vanishing central charge at the horizon in N=2, 4 supergravity theories with a symmetric moduli space. We solve t…
We analyze AdS$_5$ black holes that are nearly supersymmetric. They depart from the BPS limit in two distinct ways: a temperature takes them above extremality and a potential violates a certain constraint. We study the thermodynamics of these deformations and their interplay in detail. We discuss recent microscopic computations of BPS black hole entropy in $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM and generalize methods to the nearBPS regime by relaxing constraints imposed by supersymmetry. The computations recover gravitational results from microscopics also for nearBPS black holes.
Microstates of colinear black holes embedded in a multi-center Taub-NUT spacetime are sought in 4 dimensions. A set of coupled ordinary partial differential equations are obtained and solved for almost-BPS states, where some supersymmetry is preserved in the context of N=2 supergravity in 4 dimensions. The regularity of solutions is being carefully considered and we ensure that no CTC (closed time-like curves) are present. The larger framework is that of 11-dimensional N=2 supergravity and the current theory is obtained by compactifying down to 4 dimensions.
We study the possibility of constructing non-BPS charged black holes in 5D Poincare supergravity by partially violating superconformal Killing spinor equations. However, solutions to these modified first order equations are inconsistent with the second order equations of motion beyond the near horizon region. Instead we find, for special prepotentials, that the consistent asymptotically flat extension of the non-BPS near horizon solution is generated by a symmetry transformation that leaves the two-derivative action invariant.
We study classical and quantum aspects of D=4, N=2 BPS black holes for T_2 compactification of D=6, N=1 heterotic string vacua. We extend dynamical relaxation phenomena of moduli fields to background consisting of a BPS soliton or a black hole and provide a simpler but more general derivation of the Ferrara-Kallosh's extremized black hole mass and entropy. We study quantum effects to the BPS black hole mass spectra and to their dynamical relaxation. We show that, despite non-renormalizability of string effective supergravity, quantum effect modifies BPS mass spectra only through coupling const…
We report on duality invariant constraints, which allow a classification of BPS black holes preserving different fractions of supersymmetry. We then relate this analysis to the orbits of the exceptional groups $E_{6(6)}, E_{7(7)}$, relevant for black holes in five and four dimensions.
We focus on black branes and toroidal black holes in N=2 gauged supergravities that asymptote to AdS_4, and derive formulas for the mass and central charge densities. We derive the corresponding BPS bound from the superalgebra of the asymptotic vacuum and illustrate our procedure with explicit examples of genuine black brane solutions with non-trivial scalars.
We present the on-shell double copy dictionary for linearised ${\mathcal N}=2$ supergravity coupled to an arbitrary number of vector multiplets in four dimensions. Subsequently, we use it to construct a double copy description of multi-centered BPS black hole solutions in these theories in the weak-field approximation.
We show that the system of $k$ NS5-branes wrapping $\mathbb{T}^4\times S^1$ has non-trivial vacuum structure. Different vacua have different spectra of 1/4 BPS states that carry momentum and winding around the $S^1$. In one vacuum, such states are described by black holes; in another, they can be thought of as perturbative BPS states in Double Scaled Little String Theory. In general, both kinds of states are present. We compute the degeneracy of perturbative BPS states exactly, and show that it differs from that of the corresponding black holes. We comment on the implication of our results to …
We show that the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of a class of BPS electrically charged rotating black holes in AdS$_5\times S^5$ can be obtained by a simple extremization principle. We expect that this extremization corresponds to the attractor mechanism for BPS rotating black holes in five-dimensional gauged supergravity, which is still unknown. The expression to be extremized has a suggestive resemblance to anomaly polynomials and the supersymmetric Casimir energy recently studied for $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills.
Extremal charged black holes are BPS solutions. It is commonly thought that their nonextremal counterparts are not. Further, experience with BPS solutions in flat spacetime suggests that all BPS solutions are supersymmetric; i.e. that they are invariant under some supersymmetry charges of either the original field theory or an appropriately extended version thereof. Using nonextremal Reissner-Nordström black holes as counterexamples, we show that neither of these expectations is universally valid. These black holes correspond to a one-parameter family of BPS solutions. By showing that, subject…
This note discusses some results on the non-BPS excitations of D-branes. We show that the excitation spectrum of a bound state of D-strings changes character when the length of the wrapping circle becomes less than $\sim g^{-1}\LS$. We review the observed relation between the low energy absorption cross-section of D-branes and the low energy absorption cross-section for black holes. We discuss various issues related to the information question for black holes.
We derive a generalised form of flow equations for extremal static and rotating non-BPS black holes in four-dimensional ungauged N = 2 supergravity coupled to vector multiplets. For particular charge vectors, we give stabilisation equations for the scalars, analogous to the BPS case, describing full known solutions. Based on this, we propose a generic ansatz for the stabilisation equations, which surprisingly includes ratios of harmonic functions.
We demonstrate a solution generating technique, modulo some constraints, for a large class of smooth supergravity solutions with the same asymptotic charges as a five dimensional 3-charge BPS black hole or black ring, dual to a D1/D5/P system. These solutions are characterized by a harmonic function with both positive and negative poles, which induces a geometric transition whereby singular sources have disappeared and all of the net charge at infinity is sourced by fluxes through two-cycles joining the poles of the harmonic function.
In this note we analyze the BPS black hole equations in extended supergravities and we find two interesting relations involving first and second derivatives of combinations of the central charges. One relation is a new identity that solely relies on the geometric properties of the scalar manifolds of extended supergravity theories. The other relation is a generalization of a scalar weak gravity conjecture relation conjectured by Palti and uses properties of the underlying black hole solution. We also provide for the first time an explicit covariant construction of the BPS squared action for su…
We report on some general results on the physics of extremal BPS black holes in four and five dimensions. The duality-invariant entropy-formula for all $N>2$ extended supergravities is derived. Its relation with the fixed-scalar condition for the black-hole ``potential energy'' wich extremizes the BPS mass is obtained. BPS black holes preserving different fractions of supersymmetry are classified in a U-duality invariant set up. The latter deals with different orbits of the fundamental representations of the exceptional groups $E_{7(7)}$ and $E_{6(6)}$. We comment upon the interpretation of th…
We interpret extremal non-BPS black holes in four dimensions as threshold bound states of four 1/2-BPS constituents. We verify the no-force condition for each of the primitive constituents in the probe approximation. Our computations are for a seed solution with $\bar{D0}-D4$ charges and equal $B$-fields, but symmetries extend the result to any U-dual frame. We make the constituent model for the $D0-D6$ system explicit, and also discuss a duality frame where the constituents are $D3$ branes at angles. We demonstrate stability of the constituent model in the weak coupling description of the con…
We study $N=2$ gauged supergravity with $U(1)$ gauge group coupled to $n_v$ vector multiplets and find quite general analytic solutions for quarter-BPS black holes with mass, NUT and dyonic Maxwell charges. The solutions we find have running scalar fields and flow in the IR region to a horizon geometry of the form AdS$_2\times Σ_g$.
In this talk I review both accomplished results and work in progress on the use of solvable Lie algebras as an intrinsic algebraic characterization of the scalar field sector of M--theory low energy effective lagrangians. In particular I review the application of these techniques in obtaining the most general form of BPS black hole solutions.
We derive a non-BPS linear ansatz using the charged Weyl formalism in string and M-theory backgrounds. Generic solutions are static and axially-symmetric with an arbitrary number of non-BPS sources corresponding to various brane, momentum and KKm charges. Regular sources are either four-charge non-extremal black holes or smooth non-BPS bubbles. We construct several families such as chains of non-extremal black holes or smooth non-BPS bubbling geometries and study their physics. The smooth horizonless geometries can have the same mass and charges as non-extremal black holes. Furthermore, we fin…
We develop some properties of the non-BPS attractive STU black hole. Our principle result is the construction of exact solutions for the moduli, the metric and the vectors in terms of appropriate harmonic functions. In addition, we find a spherically-symmetric attractor carrying $p^0$ ($D6$ brane) and $q_a$ ($D2$ brane) charges by solving the non-BPS attractor equation (which we present in a particularly compact form) and by minimizing an effective black hole potential. Finally, we make an argument for the existence of multi-center attractors and conjecture that if such solutions exist they ma…
We complete the study of static BPS, asymptotically AdS$_4$ black holes within N=2 FI-gauged supergravity and where the scalar manifold is a homogeneous very special Kahler manifold. We find the analytic form for the general solution to the BPS equations, the horizon appears as a double root of a particular quartic polynomial whereas in previous work this quartic polynomial further factored into a pair of double roots. A new and distinguishing feature of our solutions is that the phase of the supersymmetry parameter varies throughout the black hole. The general solution has $2n_v$ independent …
We construct multi-center, non-supersymmetric four-dimensional solutions describing a rotating anti-D6-D2 black hole and an arbitrary number of D4-D2-D0 black holes in a line. These solutions correspond to an arbitrary number of extremal non-BPS black rings in a Taub-NUT space with a rotating three-charge black hole in the middle. The positions of the centers are determined by solving a set of "bubble" or "integrability" equations that contain cubic polynomials of the inter-center distance, and that allow scaling solutions even when the total four-dimensional angular momentum of the scaling ce…
We exploit some common features of black hole and domain wall solutions of (super)gravity theories coupled to scalar fields and construct a class of stable extremal black holes that are non-BPS, but still can be described by first-order differential equations. These are driven by a "superpotential'', which replaces the central charge Z in the usual black hole potential. We provide a general procedure for finding this class and deriving the associated "superpotential''. We also identify some other cases which do not belong to this class, but show a similar behaviour.
We explain how to exploit systematically the structure of nilpotent orbits to obtain a solvable system of equations describing extremal solutions of (super-)gravity theories, i.e. systems that can be solved in a linear way. We present the procedure in the case of the STU model, where we show that all extremal solutions with a flat three-dimensional base are fully described with the help of three different nilpotent orbits: the BPS, the almost-BPS and the composite non-BPS. The latter describes a new class of solutions for which the orientation of half of the constituent branes have been invert…
The attractor mechanism for the four-dimensional ${\cal N}=2$ supergravity black hole solution is analyzed in the case of the D0-D4 system. Our analyses are based on newly derived exact solutions, which exhibit explicitly the attractor mechanism for extremal non-BPS black holes. Our solutions account for the moduli as general complex fields, while in almost all non-BPS solutions obtained previously, the moduli fields are restricted to be purely imaginary. It is also pointed out that our moduli solutions contain an extra parameter that is not contained in solutions obtained by replacing the cha…
We find the entropy functions of supersymmetric black holes in AdS$_4$ and AdS$_6$ with electric charges and angular momenta. Extremizing these functions, one obtains the entropies and the chemical potentials of known analytic black hole solutions.
We construct and analyze BPS black hole solutions in gauged N=2, D=4 supergravity with charged hypermultiplets. A class of solutions can be found through spontaneous symmetry breaking in vacua that preserve maximal supersymmetry. The resulting black holes do not carry any hair for the scalars. We demonstrate this with explicit examples of both asymptotically flat and anti-de Sitter black holes. Next, we analyze the BPS conditions for asymptotically flat black holes with scalar hair and spherical or axial symmetry. We find solutions only in cases when the metric contains ripples and the vector …
Stationary, spherically symmetric solutions of N=2 supergravity in 3+1 dimensions have been shown to correspond to holomorphic curves on the twistor space of the quaternionic-Kähler space which arises in the dimensional reduction along the time direction. In this note, we generalize this result to the case of 1/4-BPS black holes in N=4 supergravity, and show that they too can be lifted to holomorphic curves on a "twistor space" Z, obtained by fibering the Grassmannian F=SO(8)/U(4) over the moduli space in three-dimensions SO(8,n_v+2)/SO(8)xSO(n_v+2). This provides a kind of octonionic generali…
We compute the leading logarithmic correction to black hole entropy on the non-BPS branch of 4D ${\cal N}\geq 2$ supergravity theories. This branch corresponds to finite temperature black holes whose extremal limit does not preserve supersymmetry, such as the $D0-D6$ system in string theory. Starting from a black hole in minimal Kaluza-Klein theory, we discuss in detail its embedding into ${\cal N}=8, 6, 4, 2$ supergravity, its spectrum of quadratic fluctuations in all these environments, and the resulting quantum corrections. We find that the $c$-anomaly vanishes only when ${\cal N}\geq 6$, i…
We propose a program for counting microstates of four-dimensional BPS black holes in N >= 2 supergravities with symmetric-space valued scalars by exploiting the symmetries of timelike reduction to three dimensions. Inspired by the equivalence between the four dimensional attractor flow and geodesic flow on the three-dimensional scalar manifold, we radially quantize stationary, spherically symmetric BPS geometries. Connections between the topological string amplitude, attractor wave function, the Ooguri-Strominger-Vafa conjecture and the theory of automorphic forms suggest that black hole degen…
Electrically charged solutions breaking half of the supersymmetry in Anti-De Sitter four dimensional N=2 supergravity coupled to vector supermultiplets are constructed. These static black holes live in an asymptotic $AdS_4$ space-time. The Killing spinor, i. e., the spinor for supersymmetry variation is explicitly constructed for these solutions.
We analyze stationary BPS black hole solutions to 4d $\mathcal{N}=2$ abelian gauged supergravity. Using an appropriate near horizon ansatz, we construct rotating attractors with magnetic flux realizing a topological twist along the horizon surface, for any theory with a symmetric scalar manifold. An analytic flow to asymptotically locally $AdS_4$ is presented for a subclass of these near horizon geometries, and an explicit new example of supersymmetric $AdS_4$ rotating black hole is discussed in detail. We further note that, upon tuning the gauging to special values, one can obtain solutions w…
We compute the renormalized entanglement entropy (REE) for BPS black solutions in ${\cal N}=2$, 4d gauged supergravity. We find that this quantity decreases monotonically with the size of the entangling region until it reaches a critical point, then increases and approaches the entropy density of the brane. This behavior can be understood as a consequence of the REE being driven by two competing factors, namely entanglement and the mixedness of the black brane. In the UV entanglement dominates, whereas in the IR the mixedness takes over.
We propose a formulation of 11-dimensional M-theory in terms of five-branes with closed strings on their world-volume. We use this description to construct the complete spectrum of BPS states in compactifications to six and five dimensions. We compute the degeneracy for fixed charge and find it to be in accordance with U-duality (which in our formulation is manifest in six dimensions) and the statistical entropy formula of the corresponding black hole. We also briefly comment on the four-dimensional case.
We continue the analysis of BPS bounds started in arXiv:1110.2688, extending it to the full class of N=2 gauged supergravity theories with arbitrary vector and hypermultiplets. We derive the general form of the asymptotic charges for asymptotically flat (M_4), anti-de Sitter (AdS_4), and magnetic anti-de Sitter (mAdS_4) spacetimes. Some particular examples from black hole physics are given to explicitly demonstrate how AdS and mAdS masses differ when solutions with non-trivial scalar profiles are considered.
We use the techniques of supersymmetric localization to compute the BPS black hole entropy in N=2 supergravity. We focus on the n_v+1 vector multiplets on the black hole near horizon background which is AdS_2 x S^2 space. We find the localizing saddle point of the vector multiplets by solving the localization equations, and compute the exact one loop partition function on the saddle point. Furthermore, we propose the appropriate functional integration measure. Through this measure, the one loop determinant is written in terms of the radius of the physical metric, which depends on the localizin…
Using the general framework developed in hep-th/0607056, we study in detail the phase space of BPS Black Holes in AdS, for the case where all three electric charges are equal. Although these solitons are supersymmetric with zero Hawking temperature, it turns out that these Black Holes have rich phase structure with sharp phase transitions associated to a corresponding critical generalized temperature. We are able to rewrite the gravity variables in terms of dual CFT variables and compare the gravity phase diagram with the free dual CFT phase diagram. In particular, the elusive supergravity con…
We calculate near-horizon solutions for four-dimensional 4-charge and five-dimensional 3-charge black holes in heterotic string theory from the part of the ten-dimensional tree-level effective action which is connected to gravitational Chern-Simons term by supersymmetry. We obtain that the entropies of large black holes exactly match the alpha'-exact statistical entropies obtained from microstate counting (D=4) and AdS/CFT correspondence (D=5). Especially interesting is that we obtain agreement for both BPS and non-BPS black holes, contrary to the case of R^2-truncated (four-derivative) action…
We review recent results in the study of regular four dimensional BPS black holes in toroidally compactified type II (or M) theory. We discuss the generating solution for this kind of black holes, its microscopic description(s), and compute the corresponding microscopic entropy. These achievements, which provide a description of the fundamental degrees of freedom accounting for the entropy of any regular BPS black hole in the theory under consideration, are inscribed within a research project aimed to the study of the microscopic properties of this kind of solutions in relation to U--duality i…
We analyze BPS black hole attractors in 4d gauged supergravity in the presence of higher derivative supersymmetric terms, including a Weyl-squared-type action, and determine the resulting corrections to the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. The near-horizon geometry AdS$_2 \times$S$^2$ (or other Riemann surface) preserves half of the supercharges in $N=2$ supergravity with Fayet-Iliopoulos gauging. We derive a relation between the entropy and the black hole charges that suggests via AdS/CFT how subleading corrections contribute to the supersymmetric index in the dual microscopic picture. Depending o…
We obtain two extremal, spherically symmetric, non-BPS black hole solutions to 4D supergravity, one of which carries D2-D6 charges and the other carries D0-D2-D4 charges. For the D2-D6 case, rather than solving the equations of motion directly, we assume the form of the solution and then find that the assumption satisfies the equations of motion and the constraint. Our D2-D6 solution is manifestly dual to the solution presented in 0710.4967. The D0-D2-D4 solution is obtained by performing certain $[SL(2,{\bf Z})]^{3}$ duality transformations on the D0-D4 solution in 0710.4967.
We consider the flow equations for $1/4$-BPS asymptotically AdS$_4$ static black holes in Fayet-Iliopoulos gauged supergravity, using very special geometry identities to obtain a simplified form in the most general case. Under mild assumptions on the form of the solution, we analyse the flow equations and find an explicit solution for arbitrary gauging and charge vectors within the chosen ansatz. Comparing with the corresponding attractor equations, we find that the solution is given in terms of exactly the same vector of parameters, implying that all regular attractors can be extended to full…
