Abstract
String stars, or Horowitz-Polchinski solutions, are Euclidean string theory saddles with a normalizable condensate of thermal winding strings. String stars were suggested as a possible description of stringy (Euclidean) black holes close to the Hagedorn temperature. In this work, we continue the study initiated in [1] by investigating the thermodynamic properties of string stars in asymptotically (thermal) anti-de Sitter backgrounds. First, we discuss the case of AdS3 with mixed RR and NS-NS fluxes (including the pure NS-NS system) and comment on a possible BTZ/string transition unique to AdS3. Second, we present new “winding-string gas” saddles for confining holographic backgrounds such as the Witten model and determine the subleading correction to their Hagedorn temperature. We speculate a black brane/string transition in these models and argue for a possible relation to the deconfined phase of 3+1 dimensional pure Yang-Mills.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
E.Y. Urbach, String stars in anti de Sitter space, JHEP 04 (2022) 072 [arXiv:2202.06966] [INSPIRE].
G. Veneziano, A stringy nature needs just two constants, EPL 2 (1986) 199 [INSPIRE].
L. Susskind, Some speculations about black hole entropy in string theory, hep-th/9309145 [INSPIRE].
G.T. Horowitz and J. Polchinski, A correspondence principle for black holes and strings, Phys. Rev. D 55 (1997) 6189 [hep-th/9612146] [INSPIRE].
G.T. Horowitz and J. Polchinski, Selfgravitating fundamental strings, Phys. Rev. D 57 (1998) 2557 [hep-th/9707170] [INSPIRE].
T. Damour and G. Veneziano, Selfgravitating fundamental strings and black holes, Nucl. Phys. B 568 (2000) 93 [hep-th/9907030] [INSPIRE].
R.R. Khuri, Selfgravitating strings and string/black hole correspondence, Phys. Lett. B 470 (1999) 73 [hep-th/9910122] [INSPIRE].
D. Kutasov, Accelerating branes and the string/black hole transition, hep-th/0509170 [INSPIRE].
A. Giveon and D. Kutasov, The charged black hole/string transition, JHEP 01 (2006) 120 [hep-th/0510211] [INSPIRE].
Y. Chen and J. Maldacena, String scale black holes at large D, JHEP 01 (2022) 095 [arXiv:2106.02169] [INSPIRE].
R. Brustein and Y. Zigdon, Black hole entropy sourced by string winding condensate, JHEP 10 (2021) 219 [arXiv:2107.09001] [INSPIRE].
Y. Chen, J. Maldacena and E. Witten, On the black hole/string transition, JHEP 01 (2023) 103 [arXiv:2109.08563] [INSPIRE].
B. Balthazar, J. Chu and D. Kutasov, Winding tachyons and stringy black holes, arXiv:2204.00012 [INSPIRE].
A. Bedroya, High energy scattering and string/black hole transition, arXiv:2211.17162 [INSPIRE].
B. Balthazar, J. Chu and D. Kutasov, On small black holes in string theory, arXiv:2210.12033 [INSPIRE].
J.J. Atick and E. Witten, The Hagedorn transition and the number of degrees of freedom of string theory, Nucl. Phys. B 310 (1988) 291 [INSPIRE].
O. Aharony et al., The Hagedorn-deconfinement phase transition in weakly coupled large N gauge theories, Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 8 (2004) 603 [hep-th/0310285] [INSPIRE].
T. Harmark and M. Wilhelm, Solving the Hagedorn temperature of AdS5/CFT4 via the quantum spectral curve: chemical potentials and deformations, JHEP 07 (2022) 136 [arXiv:2109.09761] [INSPIRE].
B. Sundborg, The Hagedorn transition, deconfinement and N = 4 SYM theory, Nucl. Phys. B 573 (2000) 349 [hep-th/9908001] [INSPIRE].
L. Alvarez-Gaume, C. Gomez, H. Liu and S. Wadia, Finite temperature effective action, AdS5 black holes, and 1/N expansion, Phys. Rev. D 71 (2005) 124023 [hep-th/0502227] [INSPIRE].
M. Banados, C. Teitelboim and J. Zanelli, The black hole in three-dimensional space-time, Phys. Rev. Lett. 69 (1992) 1849 [hep-th/9204099] [INSPIRE].
M. Berkooz, Z. Komargodski and D. Reichmann, Thermal AdS3, BTZ and competing winding modes condensation, JHEP 12 (2007) 020 [arXiv:0706.0610] [INSPIRE].
F.-L. Lin, T. Matsuo and D. Tomino, Hagedorn strings and correspondence principle in AdS3, JHEP 09 (2007) 042 [arXiv:0705.4514] [INSPIRE].
M. Rangamani and S.F. Ross, Winding tachyons in BTZ, Phys. Rev. D 77 (2008) 026010 [arXiv:0706.0663] [INSPIRE].
D.L. Jafferis and E. Schneider, Stringy ER = EPR, JHEP 10 (2022) 195 [arXiv:2104.07233] [INSPIRE].
I. Halder, D.L. Jafferis and D.K. Kolchmeyer, A duality in string theory on AdS3, JHEP 07 (2023) 049 [arXiv:2208.00016] [INSPIRE].
J.M. Maldacena, The large N limit of superconformal field theories and supergravity, Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 2 (1998) 231 [hep-th/9711200] [INSPIRE].
A. Giveon, D. Kutasov and N. Seiberg, Comments on string theory on AdS3, Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 2 (1998) 733 [hep-th/9806194] [INSPIRE].
D. Kutasov and N. Seiberg, More comments on string theory on AdS3, JHEP 04 (1999) 008 [hep-th/9903219] [INSPIRE].
J.R. David, G. Mandal and S.R. Wadia, Microscopic formulation of black holes in string theory, Phys. Rept. 369 (2002) 549 [hep-th/0203048] [INSPIRE].
M. Cho, S. Collier and X. Yin, Strings in Ramond-Ramond backgrounds from the Neveu-Schwarz-Ramond formalism, JHEP 12 (2020) 123 [arXiv:1811.00032] [INSPIRE].
J.M. Maldacena, J. Michelson and A. Strominger, Anti-de Sitter fragmentation, JHEP 02 (1999) 011 [hep-th/9812073] [INSPIRE].
N. Seiberg and E. Witten, The D1/D5 system and singular CFT, JHEP 04 (1999) 017 [hep-th/9903224] [INSPIRE].
E. Witten, Anti-de Sitter space and holography, Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 2 (1998) 253 [hep-th/9802150] [INSPIRE].
J.M. Maldacena and C. Nunez, Towards the large N limit of pure N = 1 superYang-Mills, Phys. Rev. Lett. 86 (2001) 588 [hep-th/0008001] [INSPIRE].
I.R. Klebanov and M.J. Strassler, Supergravity and a confining gauge theory: duality cascades and χSB resolution of naked singularities, JHEP 08 (2000) 052 [hep-th/0007191] [INSPIRE].
D.Z. Freedman and J.A. Minahan, Finite temperature effects in the supergravity dual of the N = 1* gauge theory, JHEP 01 (2001) 036 [hep-th/0007250] [INSPIRE].
S.S. Gubser, C.P. Herzog, I.R. Klebanov and A.A. Tseytlin, Restoration of chiral symmetry: a supergravity perspective, JHEP 05 (2001) 028 [hep-th/0102172] [INSPIRE].
A. Buchel et al., Nonextremal gravity duals for fractional D3 branes on the conifold, JHEP 04 (2001) 033 [hep-th/0102105] [INSPIRE].
A. Buchel and A.R. Frey, Comments on supergravity dual of pure N = 1 super Yang-Mills theory with unbroken chiral symmetry, Phys. Rev. D 64 (2001) 064007 [hep-th/0103022] [INSPIRE].
S.S. Gubser, A.A. Tseytlin and M.S. Volkov, Non-Abelian 4d black holes, wrapped five-branes, and their dual descriptions, JHEP 09 (2001) 017 [hep-th/0108205] [INSPIRE].
A. Buchel, On the thermodynamic instability of LST, hep-th/0107102 [INSPIRE].
A. Buchel and J.T. Liu, Thermodynamics of the N = 2* flow, JHEP 11 (2003) 031 [hep-th/0305064] [INSPIRE].
O. Aharony, J. Sonnenschein and S. Yankielowicz, A holographic model of deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration, Annals Phys. 322 (2007) 1420 [hep-th/0604161] [INSPIRE].
O. Aharony, A. Buchel and P. Kerner, The black hole in the throat: thermodynamics of strongly coupled cascading gauge theories, Phys. Rev. D 76 (2007) 086005 [arXiv:0706.1768] [INSPIRE].
A. Buchel, S. Deakin, P. Kerner and J.T. Liu, Thermodynamics of the N = 2* strongly coupled plasma, Nucl. Phys. B 784 (2007) 72 [hep-th/0701142] [INSPIRE].
A. Buchel, Klebanov-Strassler black hole, JHEP 01 (2019) 207 [arXiv:1809.08484] [INSPIRE].
J.M. Maldacena and H. Ooguri, Strings in AdS3 and SL(2, R) WZW model 1. The spectrum, J. Math. Phys. 42 (2001) 2929 [hep-th/0001053] [INSPIRE].
N. Agia, I. Halder and D.L. Jafferis, upcoming work.
J. Polchinski, String theory. Volume 2: superstring theory and beyond, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K. (2007) [https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511618123] [INSPIRE].
A. Cavaglià et al., Quantum spectral curve for AdS3/CFT2: a proposal, JHEP 12 (2021) 048 [arXiv:2109.05500] [INSPIRE].
S. Ekhammar and D. Volin, Monodromy bootstrap for SU(2|2) quantum spectral curves: from Hubbard model to AdS3/CFT2, JHEP 03 (2022) 192 [arXiv:2109.06164] [INSPIRE].
A. Cavaglià, S. Ekhammar, N. Gromov and P. Ryan, Exploring the quantum spectral curve for AdS3/CFT2, arXiv:2211.07810 [INSPIRE].
S. Frolov and A. Sfondrini, Mirror thermodynamic Bethe ansatz for AdS3/CFT2, JHEP 03 (2022) 138 [arXiv:2112.08898] [INSPIRE].
E. Witten, Anti-de Sitter space, thermal phase transition, and confinement in gauge theories, Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 2 (1998) 505 [hep-th/9803131] [INSPIRE].
F. Bigazzi, T. Canneti and A.L. Cotrone, On the Hagedorn temperature in holographic confining gauge theories, JHEP 01 (2023) 034 [arXiv:2210.09893] [INSPIRE].
O. Aharony et al., The phase structure of low dimensional large N gauge theories on tori, JHEP 01 (2006) 140 [hep-th/0508077] [INSPIRE].
O. Aharony et al., Large N field theories, string theory and gravity, Phys. Rept. 323 (2000) 183 [hep-th/9905111] [INSPIRE].
C. Csaki, H. Ooguri, Y. Oz and J. Terning, Glueball mass spectrum from supergravity, JHEP 01 (1999) 017 [hep-th/9806021] [INSPIRE].
A.H. Chamseddine and M.S. Volkov, Non-Abelian BPS monopoles in N = 4 gauged supergravity, Phys. Rev. Lett. 79 (1997) 3343 [hep-th/9707176] [INSPIRE].
D. Kutasov and D.A. Sahakyan, Comments on the thermodynamics of little string theory, JHEP 02 (2001) 021 [hep-th/0012258] [INSPIRE].
L.A. Pando Zayas, J. Sonnenschein and D. Vaman, Regge trajectories revisited in the gauge/string correspondence, Nucl. Phys. B 682 (2004) 3 [hep-th/0311190] [INSPIRE].
T.G. Mertens, H. Verschelde and V.I. Zakharov, The thermal scalar and random walks in AdS3 and BTZ, JHEP 06 (2014) 156 [arXiv:1402.2808] [INSPIRE].
S. Hemming, E. Keski-Vakkuri and P. Kraus, Strings in the extended BTZ space-time, JHEP 10 (2002) 006 [hep-th/0208003] [INSPIRE].
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Micha Berkooz, Shai Chester, Rajesh Gopakumar, Indranil Halder, Daniel Jafferis, Yiyang Jia, Zohar Komargodski, Suman Kundu, Ohad Mamroud, Adar Sharon, Tal Sheaffer, Gabriel Wong and Xi Yin for useful discussions and comments. I especially thank Ofer Aharony and David Kutasov for their guidance and comments on the manuscript.
This work was partly funded by an Israel Science Foundation center for excellence grant (grant number 2289/18), by grant no. 2018068 from the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF), by the Minerva foundation with funding from the Federal German Ministry for Education and Research, by the German Research Foundation through a German-Israeli Project Cooperation (DIP) grant “Holography and the Swampland”, and by a research grant from Martin Eisenstein.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
ArXiv ePrint: 2303.09567
Rights and permissions
Open Access . This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
About this article
Cite this article
Urbach, E.Y. The black hole/string transition in AdS3 and confining backgrounds. J. High Energ. Phys. 2023, 156 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP09(2023)156
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP09(2023)156