Extremal black holes as fundamental strings

We show that polarization-dependent string-string scattering provides new evidence for the identification of the Dabholkar-Harvey (DH) string solution with the heterotic string itself. First, we construct excited versions of the DH solution which carry arbitrary left-moving waves yet are annihilated by half the supersymmetries. These solutions correspond in a natural way to Bogomolny-bound-saturating excitations of the ground state of the heterotic string. When the excited string solutions are compactified to four dimensions, they reduce to Sen's family of extremal black hole solutions of the toroidally compactified heterotic string. We then study the large impact parameter scattering of two such string solutions. We develop methods which go beyond the metric on moduli space approximation and allow us to read off the subleading polarization-dependent scattering amplitudes. We find perfect agreement with heterotic string tree amplitude predictions for the scattering of corresponding string states. Taken together, these results clearly identify the string states responsible for Sen's extremal black hole entropy. We end with a brief discussion of implications for the black hole information problem.     

Connecting black holes and black strings

Static vacuum spacetimes with one compact dimension include black holes with localized horizons but also uniform and nonuniform black strings where the horizon wraps over the compact dimension. We present new numerical solutions for these localized black holes in 5 and 6 dimensions. Combined with previous 6D nonuniform string results, these provide evidence that the black hole and nonuniform string branches join at a topology changing solution.     

The phase transition between caged black holes and black strings

Black-hole uniqueness is known to fail in higher dimensions, and the multiplicity of black hole phases leads to phase transitions physics in General Relativity. The black-hole black-string transition is a prime realization of such a system and its phase diagram has been the subject of considerable study in the last few years. The most surprising results seem to be the appearance of critical dimensions where the qualitative behavior of the system changes, and a novel kind of topology change. Recently, a full phase diagram was determined numerically, confirming earlier predictions for a merger of the black-hole and black-string phases and giving very strong evidence that the end-state of the Gregory–Laflamme instability is a black hole (in the dimension range 5?D?13$5?D?13$). Here this progress is reviewed, illustrated with figures, put into a wider context, and the still open questions are listed.     

Black holes as solitons

We remark that exact classical Schwarzschild-like solutions to Einstein's (and possibly f gravity) equations provide examples of realistic solitons.     

Initial data for black holes and black strings in 5D

We explore time-symmetric hypersurfaces containing apparent horizons of black objects in a 5D spacetime with one coordinate compactified on a circle. We find a phase transition within the family of such hypersurfaces: the horizon has different topology for different parameters. The topology varies from S3 to S2 x S1. This phase transition is discontinuous--the topology of the horizon changes abruptly. We explore the behavior around the critical point and present a possible phase diagram.     

On the conjectured transition of black holes into strings

It is argued that if black holes change into strings in the last stage of their evaporation, as has been conjectured, they will go into massless strings directly rather than via an intermediate state containing a massive string.     

Scalar hairy black holes and solitons in a gravitating Goldstone model

We study black hole solutions of Einstein gravity coupled to a specific global symmetry breaking Goldstone model described by an O(3) isovector scalar field in four spacetime dimensions. Our configurations are static and spherically symmetric, approaching at infinity a Minkowski spacetime background. A set of globally regular, particle-like solutions are found in the limit of vanishing event horizon radius. These configurations can be viewed as ‘regularised’ global monopoles, since their mass is finite and the spacetime geometry has no deficit angle. As an unusual feature, we notice the existence of extremal black holes in this model defined in terms of gravity and scalar fields only.     

Refined holographic entanglement entropy for the AdS solitons and AdS black holes

We consider the refinement of the holographic entanglement entropy for the holographic dual theories to the AdS solitons and AdS black holes, including the corrected ones by the Gauss–Bonnet term. The refinement is obtained by extracting the UV-independent piece of the holographic entanglement entropy, the so-called renormalized entanglement entropy which is independent of the choices of UV cutoff. Our main results are: (i) the renormalized entanglement entropies of the _AdSd+1${\mathrm{AdS}}_{d+1}$ soliton for d=4,5$d=4,5$ are neither monotonically decreasing along the RG flow nor positive-definite, especially around the deconfinement/confinement phase transition; (ii) there is no topological entanglement entropy for AdS₅ soliton even with Gauss–Bonnet correction; (iii) for the AdS black holes, the renormalized entanglement entropy obeys an expected volume law at IR regime, and the transition between UV and IR regimes is a smooth crossover even with Gauss–Bonnet correction; (iv) based on AdS/MERA conjecture, we postulate that the IR fixed-point state for the non-extremal AdS soliton is a trivial product state.