We give a systematic local description of invariant metrics and other invariant fields on a spacetime under the action of a (non-abelian) group. This includes the invariant fields in a neighbourhood of a principal and a special orbit. The construction is illustrated with examples. We also apply the formalism to give the R-symmetry invariant metrics of some AdS backgrounds and comment on applications to Kaluza-Klein theory.
We discuss special quantum group (secret) symmetries of the integrable system associated to the AdS/CFT correspondence. These symmetries have by now been observed in a variety of forms, including the spectral problem, the boundary scattering problem, n-point amplitudes, the pure-spinor formulation and quantum affine deformations.
Coset methods are used to construct the action describing the dynamics associated with the spontaneous breaking of the local symmetries of AdS_{d+1} space due to the embedding of an AdS_d brane. The resulting action is an SO(2,d) invariant AdS form of the Einstein-Hilbert action, which in addition to the AdS_d gravitational vielbein, also includes a massive vector field localized on the brane. Its long wavelength dynamics is the same as a massive Abelian vector field coupled to gravity in AdS_d space.
We find new twisted Yangian symmetries of the AdS/CFT reflection matrices for the Y=0 maximal giant graviton and D5-brane. These new symmetries originate from the known secret symmetries of the Yangian symmetry of the AdS/CFT S-matrix.
We present a detailed discussion of the asymptotic symmetries of Anti-de Sitter space in two dimensions and their relationship with the conformal group in one dimension. We use this relationship to give a microscopical derivation of the entropy of 2d black holes that have asymptotically Anti-de Sitter behaviour. The implications of our results for the conjectured AdS_2/CFT_1 duality are also discussed.
We give a general account of nonlocal symmetries in symmetric space models and their relation to the AdS/CFT correspondence. In particular, we study a master symmetry which generates the spectral parameter and acts as a level-raising operator on the classical Yangian generators. The master symmetry extends to an infinite tower of symmetries with nonlocal Casimir elements as associated conserved charges. We discuss the algebraic properties of these symmetries and establish their role in explaining the recently observed one-parameter deformation of holographic Wilson loops. Finally, we provide a…
We study hidden symmetries, the symmetries associated with the Killing tensors, of the near horizon geometry of odd-dimensional Kerr-AdS-NUT black hole in two limits: generic extremal and extremal vanishing horizon (EVH) limits. Starting from Kerr-AdS-NUT black hole in ellipsoidal coordinates which admits integrable geodesic equations, we obtain the near horizon extremal/EVH geometries and their principal and Killing tensors by taking the near horizon limit. We explicitly demonstrate that geodesic equations are separable and integrable on theses near horizon geometries. We also compute the con…
Global symmetries play an important role in classifying the spectrum of a gauge theory. In the context of the AdS/CFT duality, global baryon-like symmetries are specially interesting. In the gravity side, they correspond to vector fields in AdS arising from KK reduction of the SUGRA p-form potentials. We concentrate on the AdS_4/CFT_3 case, which presents very interesting characteristic features. Following arXiv:1004.2045, we review aspects of such symmetries, clarifying along the way some arguments in that reference. As a byproduct, and in a slightly unrelated context, we also study Z-minimiz…
I analyze the asymptotic symmetries of a theory of gravity in a background consisting of two patches of ${\rm AdS}_3$ spacetime glued together along an ${\rm AdS}_2$ brane. These are generated by a single Virasoro algebra, as expected from the conjectured dual description in terms of a scale-invariant interface separating two conformal field theories. Contributed to the proceedings of the Francqui Colloquium 2001: `Strings and Gravity: Tying the Forces Together .'
It is shown that local symmetry transformations of the maximal AdS supergravity in seven-dimensional anti de Sitter space induce those of the N=(2,0) conformal supergravity on the six-dimensional boundary at infinity. Boundary values of the AdS supergravity fields form a supermultiplet of the conformal supergravity.
General conjectures about the SL(2,Z) modular transformation properties of N=4 super-Yang-Mills correlation functions are presented. It is shown how these modular transformation properties arise from the conjectured duality with IIB string theory on AdS_5 x S^5. We discuss in detail a prediction of the AdS duality: that N=4 field theory, in an appropriate limit, must exhibit bonus symmetries, corresponding to the enhanced symmetries of IIB string theory in its supergravity limit.
We establish features of so-called Yangian secret symmetries for AdS3 type IIB superstring backgrounds thus verifying the persistence of such symmetries to this new instance of the AdS/CFT correspondence. Specifically, we find two a priori different classes of secret symmetry generators. One class of generators, anticipated from the previous literature, is more naturally embedded in the algebra governing the integrable scattering problem. The other class of generators is more elusive, and somewhat closer in its form to its higher-dimensional AdS5 counterpart. All of these symmetries respect le…
It is well known that the Kerr-NUT-AdS-dS black hole admits two linearly independent Killing vectors and possesses a hidden symmetry generated by a rank-2 Killing tensor. The near-horizon geometry of an extremal Kerr-NUT-AdS-dS black hole admits four linearly independent Killing vectors, and we show how the hidden symmetry of the black hole itself is carried over by means of a modified Killing-Yano potential which is given explicitly. We demonstrate that the corresponding Killing tensor of the near-horizon geometry is reducible as it can be expressed in terms of the Casimir operators formed by…
We study Kac-Moody asymptotic symmetries and memory effects in $\text{AdS}_4^{\text{Poincare}}$ gauge theory and (when accompanied by 4D gravity) in its holographic CFT$_3$ dual. While such infinite-dimensional symmetries are absent in standard asymptotic analyses of $\text{AdS}_4$, we show how they arise with alternate AdS boundary conditions. In the 3D holographic description, these alternate boundary conditions correspond to a modified $\widetilde{\text{CFT}}_3$ obtained by Chern-Simons gauging of the CFT$_3$ dual defined by standard boundary conditions, so that Kac-Moody symmetries then fo…
A special embedding of the SU(4) algebra in SU(10), including both spin two and spin three symmetry generators, is constructed. A possible five dimensional action for massless spin two and three fields with cubic interaction is constructed. The connection with the previously investigated higher spin theories in $AdS_{5}$ background is discussed. Generalization to the more general case of symmetries, including spins $2,3,\dots s$, is shown.
We consider the curvatures 2 form asociated with AdSL4 valued one-form gauge connetion, and then we construct a four-dimensional action that generalize the Einstein-Hilbert gravity. It is shown that the Maxwell extension of Einstein gravity can be obtained from AdSL4-gravity making use of the Inonu-Wigner contraction method. In the same way, by gauging the AdSL5 spacetime algebra, the Einstein-Hilbert gravity is extended including the vector fields kab and ha which are associated with non-Abelian tensors and non Abelian vectors charges in the AdSL5 algebra. The B5 extension of Einstein gravity…
We study the breaking of baryonic symmetries in the AdS_5/CFT_4 correspondence for D3 branes at Calabi-Yau three-fold singularities. This leads, for particular VEVs, to the emergence of non-anomalous baryonic symmetries during the renormalization group flow. We claim that these VEVs correspond to critical values of the B-field moduli in the dual supergravity backgrounds. We study in detail the C^3/Z_3 orbifold, the cone over F_0 and the C^3/Z_5 orbifold. For the first two examples, we study the dual supergravity backgrounds that correspond to the breaking of the emerging baryonic symmetries an…
We discuss general properties of the theory of higher spin gauge fields in $AdS_4$ focusing on the relationship between the star-product origin of the higher spin symmetries, AdS geometry and the concept of space-time locality. A full list of conserved higher spin currents in the flat space of arbitrary dimension is presented.
We study three-dimensional consistent truncations of type IIB supergravity which admit warped AdS$_3$ solutions. These theories contain subsectors that have no bulk dynamics. We show that the symplectic form for these theories, when restricted to the non-dynamical subsectors, equals the symplectic form for pure Einstein gravity in AdS$_3$. Consequently, for each consistent choice of boundary conditions in AdS$_3$, we can define a consistent phase space in warped AdS$_3$ with identical conserved charges. This way, we easily obtain a Virasoro $\times$ Virasoro asymptotic symmetry algebra in warp…
We construct the Lax connection of the Green-Schwarz superstring in AdS_5 x S^5 within the Hamiltonian formalism and obtain precisely that used in 0810.4136. It differs in a crucial way from the Bena-Polchinski-Roiban connection by terms proportional to the Hamiltonian constraints. These extra terms ensure firstly that the integrals of motion are all first class and secondly that the Lax connection is flat in the strong sense.
The Chern-Simons formulation of $AdS_3$ supergravity is considered. Asymptotic conditions on the Rarita-Schwinger fields are given. Together with the known boundary conditions on the bosonic fields, these ensure that the asymptotic algebra is the superconformal algebra, with the same central charge as the one of pure gravity. It is also indicated that the asymptotic dynamics is described by super-Liouville.
We construct infinite dimensional symmetries of a complex, free scalar field on curved space-times generated by isometries of the space-time. We use the Anti de-Sitter backgrounds as an example and check that the boundary terms appearing in the Noether current satisfy the requirement of Noether's theorem that they vanish at the boundary.
The dual dynamics of Einstein gravity on AdS$_3$ supplemented with boundary conditions of KdV-type is identified. It corresponds to a two-dimensional field theory at the boundary, described by a novel action principle whose field equations are given by two copies of the "potential modified KdV equation". The asymptotic symmetries then transmute into the global Noether symmetries of the dual action, giving rise to an infinite set of commuting conserved charges, implying the integrability of the system. Noteworthy, the theory at the boundary is non-relativistic and possesses anisotropic scaling …
Proper understanding of the geometry on the boundary of a spacetime is a critical step on the way to extending holography to spaces with non-AdS asymptotics. In general the boundary cannot be described in terms of the Riemannian geometry and the first order formalism is more appropriate as we show. We analyze the asymptotic symmetries in the first order formalism for large classes of theories on AdS, Lifshitz or flat space. In all cases the asymptotic symmetry algebra is realized on the first order variables as a gauged symmetry algebra. First order formalism geometrizes and simplifies the ana…
We calculate the superconformal indices of a class of six-dimensional ${\cal N}=(1,0)$ superconformal field theories realized on M5-branes at $\mathbb{C}^2/\mathbb{Z}_k$ singularity by using the method developed in previous works of the authors and collaborators. We use the AdS/CFT correspondence, and finite $N$ corrections are included as the contribution of M2-branes wrapped on two-cycles in $S^4/\mathbb{Z}_k$. We confirm that the indices are consistent with the expected flavor symmetries.
We investigate whether supertranslation symmetry may appear in a scenario that involves black holes in AdS space. The framework we consider is massive 3D gravity, which admits a rich black hole phase space, including stationary AdS black holes with softly decaying hair. We consider a set of asymptotic conditions that permits such decaying near the boundary, and which, in addition to the local conformal symmetry, is preserved by an extra local current. The corresponding algebra of diffeomorphisms consists of two copies of Virasoro algebra in semi-direct sum with an infinite-dimensional Abelian …
In this note we prove that the Hamilton-Jacobi equation in the background of the recently discovered charged Kerr-AdS black hole of D=5 minimal gauged supergravity is separable, for arbitrary values of the two rotation parameters. This allows us to write down an irreducible Killing tensor for the spacetime. As a result we also show that the Klein-Gordon equation in this background is separable. We also consider the Dirac equation in this background in the special case of equal rotation parameters and show it has separable solutions. Finally we discuss the near-horizon geometry of the supersymm…
We argue that in theories of quantum gravity with discrete gauge symmetries, e.g. $\textbf{Z}_k$, the gauge couplings of U$(1)$ gauge symmetries become weak in the limit of large $k$, as $g\to k^{-α}$ with $α$ a positive order 1 coefficient. The conjecture is based on black hole arguments combined with the Weak Gravity Conjecture (or the BPS bound in the supersymmetric setup), and the species bound. We provide explicit examples based on type IIB on AdS$_5\times \textbf{S}^5/\textbf{Z}_k$ orbifolds, and M-theory on AdS$_4\times\textbf{S}^7/\textbf{Z}_k$ ABJM orbifolds (and their type IIA reduct…
We present the first proof-of-principle Cauchy evolutions of asymptotically global AdS spacetimes with no imposed symmetries, employing a numerical scheme based on the generalized harmonic form of the Einstein equations. In this scheme, the main difficulty in removing all symmetry assumptions can be phrased in terms of finding a set of generalized harmonic source functions that are consistent with AdS boundary conditions. In four spacetime dimensions, we detail an explicit set of source functions that achieves evolution in full generality. A similar prescription should also lead to stable evol…
Attempts to solve Yang-Mills theory must eventually face the problem of analyzing the theory at intermediate values of the coupling constant. In this regime neither perturbation theory nor the gravity dual are adequate, and one must consider the full string theory in the appropriate background. We suggest that in some nontrivial cases the world sheet theory may be exactly solvable. For the Green-Schwarz superstring on AdS_5 x S^5 we find an infinite set of nonlocal classically conserved charges, of the type that exist in integrable field theories.
We study the boundary limit of the bulk isometries of AdS x S. The superconformal symmetry is realized on the coordinates of the AdS boundary, the fermionic superspace coordinates, and the harmonics on the sphere. We show how these may be related to the coordinates of an off-shell harmonic superspace of SCFT living on the boundary. In the special case of d=4, N=2 super Yang-Mills theory, a truncation of the N=4 SYM dual to Type IIB string theory compactified on AdS_5 x S^5, we identify the bosonic space SU(2)/U(1) of the N=2 harmonic superspace (known before as auxiliary) with the S^2 submanif…
We consider general aspects of the realization of R and non-R flavor symmetries in the AdS_5 x H_5 dual of 4d N=1 superconformal field theories. We find a general prescription for computing the charges under these symmetries for baryonic operators, which uses only topological information (intersection numbers) on H_5. We find and discuss a new correspondence between the nodes of the SCFT quiver diagrams and certain divisors in the associated geometry. We also discuss connections between the non-R flavor symmetries and the enhanced gauge symmetries in non-conformal theories obtained by adding w…
We investigate systematically the asymptotic dynamics and symmetries of all three-dimensional extended AdS supergravity models. First, starting from the Chern-Simons formulation, we show explicitly that the (super)anti-de Sitter boundary conditions imply that the asymptotic symmetry algebra is the extended superconformal algebra with quadratic nonlinearies in the currents. We then derive the super-Liouville action by solving the Chern-Simons theory and obtain a realization of the superconformal algebras in terms of super-Liouville fields. Finally, we discuss the possible periodic conditions th…
Based on an extension of the holographic principle to superspace, we provide a strong-coupling description of smooth super Wilson loops in terms of minimal surfaces of the $AdS_5 \times S^5$ superstring. We employ the classical integrability of the Green-Schwarz superstring on $AdS_5 \times S^5$ to derive the superconformal and Yangian $Y[\mathfrak{psu}(2,2|4)]$ Ward identities for the super Wilson loop, thus extending the strong coupling results obtained for the Maldacena-Wilson loop. In the course of the derivation, we determine the minimal surface solution up to third order in an expansion …
Asymptotic symmetries of AdS$_4$ quantum gravity and gauge theory are derived by coupling the dual CFT$_3$ to Chern-Simons gauge theory and 3D gravity in a "probe" large-level limit. The infinite-dimensional symmetries are shown to arise when one is restricted to boundary subspaces with effectively two-dimensional geometry. A canonical example of such a restriction occurs within the 4D subregion described by a Wheeler-DeWitt wavefunctional of AdS$_4$ quantum gravity. An AdS$_4$ analog of Minkowski "super-rotation" asymptotic symmetry is probed by 3D Einstein gravity, yielding CFT$_2$ structure…
One of the main topics in the modern String Theory are the AdS/CFT dualities. Proving such conjectures is extremely difficult since the gauge and string theory perturbative regimes do not overlap. In this perspective, the discovery of infinitely many conserved charges, i.e. the integrability, in the planar AdS/CFT has allowed us to reach immense progresses in understanding and confirming the duality. We review the fundamental concepts and properties of integrability in two-dimensional sigma-models and in the AdS/CFT context. The first part is focused on the AdS_5/CFT_4 duality, especially the …
The set of solutions to the AdS$_3$ Einstein gravity with Brown-Henneaux boundary conditions is known to be a family of metrics labeled by two arbitrary periodic functions, respectively left and right-moving. It turns out that there exists an appropriate presymplectic form which vanishes on-shell. This promotes this set of metrics to a phase space in which the Brown-Henneaux asymptotic symmetries become symplectic symmetries in the bulk of spacetime. Moreover, any element in the phase space admits two global Killing vectors. We show that the conserved charges associated with these Killing vect…
We study U(1) symmetries dual to Betti multiplets in the AdS_4/CFT_3 correspondence for M2 branes at Calabi-Yau four-fold singularities. Analysis of the boundary conditions for vector fields in AdS_4 allows for a choice where wrapped M5 brane states carrying non-zero charge under such symmetries can be considered. We begin by focusing on isolated toric singularities without vanishing six-cycles, and study in detail the cone over Q^{111}. The boundary conditions considered are dual to a CFT where the gauge group is U(1)^2 x SU(N)^4. We find agreement between the spectrum of gauge-invariant bary…
We review the issue of gauge and gravitational anomalies with backgrounds, maybe offering a new outlook on some aspects of these questions. We compute the holographic anomalies of hypothetical theories dual, in the sense of the AdS-CFT correspondence, to Chern-Simons AdS gravities. Those anomalies are either gauge anomalies associated to the AdS gauge group of the theory or diffeomorphism anomalies, with each kind related to the other. As a result of using suitable action principles por Chern-Simons AdS gravities, coming from Transgression forms, we obtain finite results without the need for f…
We describe the classical $o(3,2)$ $r$-matrices as generating the quantum deformations of either D=3 conformal algebra with mass-like deformation parameters or D=4 $AdS$ algebra with dimensionless deformation parameters. We describe the quantization of classical $o(3,2)$ $r$-matrices via Drinfeld twist method which locates the deformation in the coalgebra sector. Further we obtain the quantum $o(3,2)$ algebra in a convenient Hopf algebra form by considering suitable deformation maps from classical to deformed $o(3,2)$ algebra basis. It appears that if we pass from $κ$-deformed D =3 conformal a…
Symmetries and their applications always played an important role in I.E. Segal's work. I shall exemplify this, starting with his correct proof (at the Lie group level) of what physicists call the ``O'Raifeartaigh theorem", continuing with his incidental introduction in 1951 of the (1953) Inönü--Wigner contractions, of which the passage from AdS (SO(2,3)) to Poincaré is an important example, and with his interest in conformal groups in the latter part of last century. Since the 60s Flato and I had many fruitful interactions with him around these topics. In a last section I succinctly relate th…
We discuss how electromagnetically dualizing a 1-form to a 2-form in AdS$_5$ exchanges regular and alternate boundary conditions, and thus gauges the originally global $U(1)$ symmetry in the dual field theory. The generalized symmetry current dual to the 2-form in the bulk is identified as the dual field strength of the gauged $U(1)$, and the associated double-trace operator with a logarithmically running coupling is just the gauged $U(1)$ Maxwell action. Applying this dualization to an AdS Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory dual to a global $U(1) \times U(1)$ model with an 't Hooft anomaly results i…
We present a revisitation of the Almheiri-Polchinski dilaton gravity model from a two-dimensional (2D) bulk perspective. We describe a peculiar feature of the model, namely the pattern of conformal symmetry breaking using bulk Killing vectors, a covariant definition of mass and the flow between different vacua of the theory. We show that the effect of the symmetry breaking is both the generation of an infrared scale (a mass gap) and to make local the Goldstone modes associated with the asymptotic symmetries of the 2D spacetime. In this way a non vanishing central charge is generated in the dua…
We study viscous hydrodynamics of hot conformal field theory plasma with multiple/non-Abelian symmetries in the framework of AdS/CFT correspondence, using a recently proposed method of directly solving bulk gravity in derivative expansion of local plasma parameters. Our motivation is to better describe the real QCD plasma produced at RHIC, incorporating its U(1)^Nf flavor symmetry as well as SU(2)_I non-Abelian iso-spin symmetry. As concrete examples, we choose to study the STU model for multiple U(1)^3 symmetries, which is a sub-sector of 5D N=4 gauged SUGRA dual to N=4 Super Yang-Mills theor…
Conformal totally symmetric arbitrary spin currents and shadow fields in flat space-time of dimension greater than or equal to four are studied. Gauge invariant formulation for such currents and shadow fields is developed. Gauge symmetries are realized by involving the Stueckelberg fields. Realization of global conformal boost symmetries is obtained. Gauge invariant differential constraints for currents and shadow fields are obtained. AdS/CFT correspondence for currents and shadow fields and the respective normalizable and non-normalizable solutions of massless totally symmetric arbitrary spin…
The worldsheet sigma-model of the superstring in AdS(5) x S(5) has a one-parameter family of flat connections parametrized by the spectral parameter. The corresponding Wilson line is not BRST invariant for an open contour, because the BRST transformation leads to boundary terms. These boundary terms define a cohomological complex associated to the endpoint of the contour. We study the cohomology of this complex for Wilson lines in some infinite-dimensional representations. We find that for these representations the cohomology is nontrivial at the ghost number 2. This implies that it is possibl…
Considerable effort has been dedicated to study the nonlinear instability of Anti-de Sitter (AdS) within spherical symmetry, but little is known about this nonlinear instability in the purely gravitational sector, where spherical symmetry is necessarily broken. In \cite{Bizon:2011gg} the onset of such nonlinear instability was associated with the existence of irremovable secular resonances at third order in perturbation theory. Furthermore, it was also conjectured in \cite{Bizon:2011gg} that certain very fine tuned initial data would not collapse. Such solutions, upon linearisation, correspond…
We recently proposed an integrable q-deformation of the AdS_5 x S^5 superstring action. Here we give details on the hamiltonian origin and construction of this deformation. The procedure is a generalization of the one previously developed for deforming principal chiral and symmetric space sigma-models. We also show that the original psu(2,2|4) symmetry is replaced in the deformed theory by a classical analog of the quantum group U_q(psu(2,2|4)) with q real. The relation between q and the deformation parameter entering the action is given. The framework used to derive the deformation also enabl…
We consider the deformations of a supersymmetric quantum field theory by adding spacetime-dependent terms to the action. We propose to describe the renormalization of such deformations in terms of some cohomological invariants, a class of solutions of a Maurer-Cartan equation. We consider the strongly coupled limit of $N=4$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. In the context of AdS/CFT correspondence, we explain what corresponds to our invariants in classical supergravity. There is a leg amputation procedure, which constructs a solution of the Maurer-Cartan equation from tree diagramms of SUGRA. …
