C. N. Pope

Consistent SO(6) reduction of type IIB supergravity on S**5

Type IIB supergravity can be consistently truncated to the metric and the self-dual 5-form. We obtain the complete non-linear Kaluza-Klein S^5 reduction Ansatz for this theory, giving rise to gravity coupled to the fifteen Yang-Mills gauge fields of SO(6) and the twenty scalars of the coset SL(6,R)/SO(6). This provides a consistent embedding of this subsector of N=8, D=5 gauged supergravity in type IIB in D=10. We demonstrate that the self-duality of the 5-form plays a crucial role in the consistency of the reduction. We also discuss certain necessary conditions for a theory of gravity and an antisymmetric tensor in an arbitrary dimension D to admit a consistent sphere reduction, keeping all the massless fields. We find that it is only possible for D=11, with a 4-form field, and D=10, with a 5-form. Furthermore, in D=11 the full bosonic structure of eleven-dimensional supergravity is required, while in D=10 the 5-form must be self-dual. It is remarkable that just from the consistency requirement alone one would discover D=11 and type IIB supergravities, and that D=11 is an upper bound on the dimension.

Critical Points of D-Dimensional Extended Gravities

We study the parameter space of D-dimensional cosmological Einstein gravity together with quadratic curvature terms. In D>4 there are in general two distinct (anti)-de Sitter vacua. We show that, for an appropriate choice of the parameters, there exists a critical point for one of the vacua, with only massless tensor, but neither massive tensor nor scalar, gravitons. At criticality, the linearized excitations have formally vanishing energy (as do black hole solutions). A further restriction of the parameters gives a one-parameter cosmological Einstein plus Weyl^2 model with a unique vacuum, whose Λ is determined.

Universal area product formulas for rotating and charged black holes in four and higher dimensions.

We present explicit results for the product of all horizon areas for general rotating multicharge black holes, both in asymptotically flat and asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetimes in four and higher dimensions. The expressions are universal, and depend only on the quantized charges, quantized angular momenta and the cosmological constant. If the latter is also quantized these universal results may provide a looking glass for probing the microscopics of general black holes.

AdS and Lifshitz black holes in conformal and Einstein-Weyl gravities

We study black hole solutions in extended gravities with higher-order curvature terms, including conformal and Einstein-Weyl gravities. In addition to the usual AdS vacuum, the theories admit Lifshitz and Schrodinger vacua. The AdS black hole in conformal gravity contains an additional parameter over and above the mass, which may be interpreted as a massive spin-2 hair. By considering the first law of thermodynamics, we find that it is necessary to introduce an associated additional intensive/extensive pair of thermodynamic quantities. We also obtain new Liftshitz black holes in conformal gravity and study their thermodynamics. We use a numerical approach to demonstrate that AdS black holes beyond the Schwarzschild-AdS solution exist in Einstein-Weyl gravity. We also demonstrate the existence of asymptotically Lifshitz black holes in Einstein-Weyl gravity. The Lifshitz black holes arise at the boundary of the parameter ranges for the AdS black holes. Outside the range, the solutions develop naked singularities. The asymptotically AdS and Lifshitz black holes provide an interesting phase transition, in the corresponding boundary field theory, from a relativistic Lorentzian system to a non-relativistic Lifshitz system.

Bohm and Einstein-Sasaki metrics, black holes and cosmological event horizons

We study physical applications of the Bohm metrics, which are infinite sequences of inhomogeneous Einstein metrics on spheres and products of spheres of dimension 5 <= d <= 9. We prove that all the Bohm metrics on S^3 x S^2 and S^3 x S^3 have negative eigenvalue modes of the Lichnerowicz operator and by numerical methods we establish that Bohm metrics on S^5 have negative eigenvalues too. We argue that all the Bohm metrics will have negative modes. These results imply that higher-dimensional black-hole spacetimes where the Bohm metric replaces the usual round sphere metric are classically unstable. We also show that the stability criterion for Freund-Rubin solutions is the same as for black-hole stability, and hence such solutions using Bohm metrics will also be unstable. We consider possible endpoints of the instabilities, and show that all Einstein-Sasaki manifolds give stable solutions. We show how Wick rotation of Bohm metrics gives spacetimes that provide counterexamples to a strict form of the Cosmic Baldness conjecture, but they are still consistent with the intuition behind the cosmic No-Hair conjectures. We show how the Lorentzian metrics may be created ``from nothing in a no-boundary setting. We argue that Lorentzian Bohm metrics are unstable to decay to de Sitter spacetime. We also argue that noncompact versions of the Bohm metrics have infinitely many negative Lichernowicz modes, and we conjecture a general relation between Lichnerowicz eigenvalues and non-uniqueness of the Dirichlet problem for Einsteins equations.

Conformal gravity and extensions of critical gravity

Higher-order curvature corrections involving the conformally invariant Weyl-squared action have played a role in two recent investigations of four-dimensional gravity: in critical gravity, where they are added to the standard cosmological Einstein-Hilbert action with a coefficient tuned to make the massive ghostlike spin-2 excitations massless, and in a pure Weyl-squared action considered by Maldacena, where the massive spin-2 modes are removed by the imposition of boundary conditions. We exhibit the connections between the two approaches, and we also generalize critical gravity to a wider class of Weyl-squared modifications to cosmological Einstein gravity where one can eliminate the massive ghostlike spin-2 modes by means of boundary conditions. The cosmological constant plays a crucial role in the discussion, since there is then a window of negative mass-squared spin-2 modes around AdS(4) that are not tachyonic. We also construct analogous conformal and nonconformal gravities in six dimensions.

Spherically symmetric solutions in higher-derivative gravity

Extensions of Einstein gravity with quadratic curvature terms in the action arise in most effective theories of quantised gravity, including string theory. This article explores the set of static, spherically symmetric and asymptotically flat solutions of this class of theories. An important element in the analysis is the careful treatment of a Lichnerowicz-type `no-hair theorem. From a Frobenius analysis of the asymptotic small-radius behaviour, the solution space is found to split into three asymptotic families, one of which contains the classic Schwarzschild solution. These three families are carefully analysed to determine the corresponding numbers of free parameters in each. One solution family is capable of arising from coupling to a distributional shell of matter near the origin; this family can then match on to an asymptotically flat solution at spatial infinity without encountering a horizon. Another family, with horizons, contains the Schwarzschild solution but includes also non-Schwarzschild black holes. The third family of solutions obtained from the Frobenius analysis is nonsingular and corresponds to `vacuum solutions. In addition to the three families identified from near-origin behaviour, there are solutions that may be identified as `wormholes, which can match symmetrically on to another sheet of spacetime at finite radius.

Domain walls with localized gravity and domain-wall/quantum field theory correspondence

We review general domain-wall solutions supported by a delta-function source, together with a single pure exponential scalar potential in supergravity. These scalar potentials arise from a sphere reduction in M theory or string theory. There are several examples of flat (BPS) domain walls that lead to a localization of gravity on the brane, and for these we obtain the form of the corrections to Newtonian gravity. These solutions are lifted back on certain internal spheres to D=11 and D=10 as M-branes and D-branes. We find that the domain walls that can trap gravity yield M-branes or Dp-branes that have a natural decoupling limit, i.e., p{<=}5, with the delta-function source providing an ultraviolet cutoff in a dual quantum field theory. This suggests that the localization of gravity can generally be realized within a domain-wall/QFT correspondence, with the delta-function domain-wall source providing a cutoff from the space-time boundary for these domain-wall solutions. We also discuss the form of the one-loop corrections to the graviton propagator from the boundary QFT that would reproduce the corrections to the Newtonian gravity on the domain wall.

Entropy-product rules for charged rotating black holes

We study the universal nature of the product of the entropies of all horizons of charged rotating black holes. We argue, by examining further explicit examples, that when the maximum number of rotations and/or charges are turned on, the entropy product is expressed in terms of angular momentum and/or charges only, which are quantized. (In the case of gauged supergravities, the entropy product depends on the gauge-coupling constant also.) In two-derivative gravities, the notion of the maximum number of charges can be defined as being sufficiently many non-zero charges that the Reissner-Nordstrom black hole arises under an appropriate specialisation of the charges. (The definition can be relaxed somewhat in charged AdS black holes in

Photon spheres and sonic horizons in black holes from supergravity and other theories

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