Erik Verlinde

On the origin of gravity and the laws of Newton

Starting from first principles and general assumptions we present a heuristic argument that shows that Newton’s law of gravitation naturally arises in a theory in which space emerges through a holographic scenario. Gravity is identified with an entropic force caused by changes in the information associated with the positions of material bodies. A relativistic generalization of the presented arguments directly leads to the Einstein equations. When space is emergent even Newton’s law of inertia needs to be explained. The equivalence principle auggests that it is actually the law of inertia whose origin is entropic.

Chiral Bosonization, Determinants and the String Partition Function

Abstract We study the bosonization of chiral fermion theories on arbitrary compact Riemann surfaces. We express the fermionic and bosonic correlation functions in terms of theta functions and prove their equality. This is used to obtain explicit expressions for a class of chiral determinants relevant to string theory. The anomaly structure of these determinants and their behaviour on degenerate Riemann surfaces is analysed. We apply these results to multi-loop calculations of the bosonic string.

C=1 conformal field theories on Riemann surfaces

We study the theory ofc=1 torus and ℤ2-orbifold models on general Riemann surfaces. The operator content and occurrence of multi-critical points in this class of theories is discussed. The partition functions and correlation functions of vertex operators and twist fields are calculated using the theory of double covered Riemann surfaces. It is shown that orbifold partition functions are sensitive to the Torelli group. We give an algebraic construction of the operator formulation of these nonchiral theories on higher genus surfaces. Modular transformations are naturally incorporated as canonical transformations in the Hilbert space.

Multiloop calculations in covariant superstring theory

We give an explicit construction of the superstring multiloop amplitudes in terms of theta functions. We analyse the correlation functions of the space-time supersymmetry current and find that these contain unphysical poles. Using BRST-invariance we show that these poles have no physical effect for on-shell amplitudes, and that the partition functions is given by a total derivative on moduli space.

A matrix big bang

The light-like linear dilaton background represents a particularly simple time-dependent 1/2 BPS solution of critical type-IIA superstring theory in ten dimensions. Its lift to M-theory, as well as its Einstein frame metric, are singular in the sense that the geometry is geodesically incomplete and the Riemann tensor diverges along a light-like subspace of codimension one. We study this background as a model for a big bang type singularity in string theory/M-theory. We construct the dual Matrix theory description in terms of a (1+1)-d supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on a time-dependent world-sheet given by the Milne orbifold of (1+1)-d Minkowski space. Our model provides a framework in which the physics of the singularity appears to be under control.

Hartle-Hawking wave-function for flux compactifications: The entropic principle

We argue that the topological string partition function, which has been known to correspond to a wave-function, can be interpreted as an exact “wave-function of the universe” in the mini-superspace sector of physical superstring theory. This realizes the idea of Hartle and Hawking in the context of string theory, including all loop quantum corrections. The mini-superspace approximation is justified as an exact description of BPS quantities. Moreover this proposal leads to a conceptual explanation of the recent observation that the black hole entropy is the square of the topological string wave-function. This wave-function can be interpreted in the context of flux compactification of all spatial dimensions as providing a physical probability distribution on the moduli space of string compactification. Euclidean time is realized holographically in this setup.

Black Hole Entanglement and Quantum Error Correction

A bstractIt was recently argued in [1] that black hole complementarity strains the basic rules of quantum information theory, such as monogamy of entanglement. Motivated by this argument, we develop a practical framework for describing black hole evaporation via unitary time evolution, based on a holographic perspective in which all black hole degrees of freedom live on the stretched horizon. We model the horizon as a unitary quantum system with finite entropy, and do not postulate that the horizon geometry is smooth. We then show that, with mild assumptions, one can reconstruct local effective field theory observables that probe the black hole interior, and relative to which the state near the horizon looks like a local Minkowski vacuum. The reconstruction makes use of the formalism of quantum error correcting codes, and works for black hole states whose entanglement entropy does not yet saturate the Bekenstein-Hawking bound. Our general framework clarifies the black hole final state proposal, and allows a quantitative study of the transition into the “firewall” regime of maximally mixed black hole states.

Degenerate stars and gravitational collapse in AdS/CFT

We construct composite CFT operators from a large number of fermionic primary fields corresponding to states that are holographically dual to a zero temperature Fermi gas in AdS space. We identify a large N regime in which the fermions behave as free particles. In the hydrodynamic limit the Fermi gas forms a degenerate star with a radius determined by the Fermi level, and a mass and angular momentum that exactly matches the boundary calculations. Next we consider an interacting regime, and calculate the effect of the gravitational back-reaction on the radius and the mass of the star using the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equations. Ignoring other interactions, we determine the ”Chandrasekhar limit” beyond which the degenerate star (presumably) undergoes gravitational collapse towards a black hole. This is interpreted on the boundary as a high density phase transition from a cold baryonic phase to a hot deconfined phase.

Holographic neutron stars

We construct in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence degenerate composite operators in the conformal field theory that are holographically dual to degenerate stars in anti de Sitter space. We calculate the effect of the gravitational back-reaction using the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equations, and determine the ”Chandrasekhar limit” beyond which the star undergoes gravitational collapse towards a black hole.

The chiral ring of AdS3/CFT2 and the attractor mechanism

We study the moduli dependence of the chiral ring in N = (4, 4) superconformal field theories, with special emphasis on those CFTs that are dual to type IIB string theory on AdS(3) x S-3 x X-4. The chiral primary operators are sections of vector bundles, whose connection describes the operator mixing under motion on the moduli space. This connection can be exactly computed using the constraints from N = (4, 4) supersymmetry. Its curvature can be determined using the tt* equations, for which we give a derivation in the physical theory which does not rely on the topological twisting. We show that for N = (4, 4) theories the chiral ring is covariantly constant over the moduli space, a fact which can be seen as a non-renormalization theorem for the three-point functions of chiral primaries in AdS(3)/CFT2. From the spacetime point of view our analysis has the following applications. First, in the case of a D1/D5 black string, we can see the matching of the attractor flow in supergravity to RG-flow in the boundary field theory perturbed by irrelevant operators, to first order away from the fixed point. Second, under spectral flow the chiral primaries become the Ramond ground states of the CFT. These ground states represent the microstates of a small black hole in five dimensions consisting of a D1/D5 bound state. The connection that we compute can be considered as an example of Berrys phase for the internal microstates of a supersymmetric black hole.