Little String Theory on Curved Manifolds

Abstract: This talk is based on 1908.02642, in collaboration with Evtikhiev and Feldman. After reviewing Little String Theories (the decoupled theories on the worldvolume of N NS5-branes) we will use their holographic duality to Type II string theory in asymptotically linear dilaton backgrounds in order to study these theories on curved space-times. We focus on backgrounds with a large number of Killing vectors (namely, products of maximally symmetric spaces), without requiring supersymmetry (we do not turn on any background fields except the metric). Little String Theory is non-local so it is not obvious which spaces it can be defined on; we show that holography implies that the theory cannot be put on negatively curved spaces, but only on spaces with zero or positive curvature. For example, one cannot put Little String Theory on a product of an anti-de Sitter space times another space, without turning on extra background fields. On spaces with positive curvature, such as products of spheres, we typically find (for large N) dual holographic backgrounds which are weakly coupled and weakly curved everywhere, so that they can be well-described by Type II supergravity. In some cases more than one smooth solution exists for Little String Theory on the same space, and they all contribute to the partition function. We also study the thermodynamical properties of Little String Theory compactified on spheres, finding the leading correction to the Hagedorn behavior of the spectrum, which is different on curved space than on flat space.

general relativity and quantum cosmologyHEP - phenomenologyHEP - theorymathematical physics

Audience: researchers in the topic

CCTP HEP Seminars

Series comments: Description: Seminars in high energy physics

Weekly HEP Seminars in the broad spectrum of High Energy Physics at University of Crete.

Recordings of past seminars can be found at conference.physics.uoc.gr/b/hep-kzk-2ad