Simon F. Ross

Heating up Galilean holography

We embed a holographic description of a quantum field theory with Galilean conformal invariance in string theory. The key observation is that such field theories may be realized as conventional superconformal field theories with a known string theory embedding, twisted by the R-symmetry in a light-like direction. Using the Null Melvin Twist, we construct the appropriate dual geometry and its non-extremal generalization. From the nonzero temperature solution we determine the equation of state. We also discuss the hydrodynamic regime of these non-relativistic plasmas and show that the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio takes the universal value �/s = 1/4� typical of strongly interacting field theories with gravity duals.

Supersymmetric Conical Defects: Towards a string theoretic description of black hole formation

Conical defects, or point particles, in

Duality between electric and magnetic black holes.

AdS_3

Nonsupersymmetric smooth geometries and D1-D5-P bound states

are one of the simplest non-trivial gravitating systems, and are particularly interesting because black holes can form from their collision. We embed the BPS conical defects of three dimensions into the N=4b supergravity in six dimensions, which arises from IIB string theory compactified on K3. The required Kaluza-Klein reduction of the six dimensional theory on a sphere is analyzed in detail, including the relation to the Chern-Simons supergravities in three dimensions. We show that the six dimensional spaces obtained by embedding the 3d conical defects arise in the near-horizon limit of rotating black strings. Various properties of these solutions are analyzed and we propose a representation of our defects in the CFT dual to asymptotically

Holographic stress tensor for non-relativistic theories

AdS_3 x S^3

On geodesic propagators and black hole holography

spaces. Our work is intended as a first step towards analyzing colliding defects that form black holes.

Boundary conditions and dualities: vector fields in AdS/CFT

A number of attempts have recently been made to extend the conjectured {ital S} duality of Yang-Mills theory to gravity. Central to these speculations has been the belief that electrically and magnetically charged black holes, the solitons of quantum gravity, have identical quantum properties. This is not obvious, because, although duality is a symmetry of the classical equations of motion, it changes the sign of the Maxwell action. Nevertheless, we show that the chemical potential and charge projection that one has to introduce for electric but not magnetic black holes exactly compensate for the difference in action in the semiclassical approximation. In particular, we show that the pair production of electric black holes is not a runaway process, as one might think if one just went by the action of the relevant instanton. We also comment on the definition of the entropy in cosmological situations, and show that we need to be more careful when defining the entropy than we are in an asymptotically flat case.

Cosmological production of charged black hole pairs.

We construct smooth nonsupersymmetric soliton solutions with D1-brane, D5-brane, and momentum charges in type IIB supergravity compactified on

Holography for asymptotically locally Lifshitz spacetimes

{T}^{4}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{S}^{1}

Conformal non-relativistic hydrodynamics from gravity

, with the charges along the compact directions. This generalizes previous studies of smooth supersymmetric solutions. The solutions are obtained by considering a known family of