Abstract
We study superstring theory in three dimensional Anti-de Sitter spacetime with NS-NS flux, focusing on the case where the radius of curvature is equal to the string length. This corresponds to the critical level k = 1 in the formulation as a Wess-Zumino-Witten model. Previously, it was argued that a transition takes place at this special radius, from a phase dominated by black holes at larger radius to one dominated by long strings at smaller radius. We argue that the infinite tower of modes that become massless at k = 1 is a signal of this transition. We propose a simple two-dimensional conformal field theory as the holographic dual to superstring theory at k = 1. As evidence for our conjecture, we demonstrate that our putative dual exactly reproduces the full spectrum of the long strings of the weakly coupled string theory, including states unprotected by supersymmetry.
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Giribet, G., Hull, C., Kleban, M. et al. Superstrings on AdS3 at k = 1. J. High Energ. Phys. 2018, 204 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP08(2018)204
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP08(2018)204