Related papers: Swampland Conjectures for an Almost Topological Gr…
The hypothesis that every theory of quantum gravity in AdS_3 is a dimensional reduction of string/M-theory leads to a natural conjecture for the density of states of two dimensional CFTs with a large central charge limit. We prove this…
We study the problem of interacting theories with (partially)-massless and conformal higher spin fields without matter in three dimensions. A new class of theories that have partially-massless fields is found, which significantly extends…
We present an alternative to Topologically Massive Gravity (TMG) with the same "minimal" bulk properties; i.e. a single local degree of freedom that is realized as a massive graviton in linearization about an anti-de Sitter (AdS) vacuum.…
Three dimensional topologically massive gravity (TMG) with a negative cosmological constant -\ell^{-2} and positive Newton constant G admits an AdS_3 vacuum solution for any value of the graviton mass \mu. These are all known to be…
The strongly coupled limit of string scattering and the automorphic construction of the graviton S-matrix is compared with the eleven dimensional formulation of M-theory. In a particular scaling limit at strong string coupling, M-theory is…
We (numerically) construct new static, asymptotically AdS solutions where the conformal infinity is the product of time and S^2 x S^1. There always exist a family of solutions in which the S^1 is not contractible and, for small S^1, there…
We consider supergravity theories with 16 supercharges in Minkowski space with dimensions $d>3$. We argue that there is an upper bound on the number of massless modes in such theories depending on $d$. In particular we show that the rank of…
We extend recent remarkable progress in the comparison of the dynamical energy spectrum of rotating closed strings in AdS_5xS^5 and the scaling weights of the corresponding non-near-BPS operators in planar N=4 supersymmetric gauge theory.…
We uncover novel features in the spectrum of BPS and near-BPS states in asymptotically $AdS_3 \times S^3 \times S^3 \times S^1$ spacetimes. This follows from a careful analysis of semiclassical and quantum black holes in this theory, which…
An infinite number of topological conformal algebras with varying central charges are explicitly shown to be present in $2d$ gravity (treated both in the conformal gauge and in the light-cone gauge) coupled to minimal matter. The central…
We consider spacetime-dependent solutions to string theory models with tadpoles for dynamical fields, arising from non-trivial scalar potentials. The solutions have necessarily finite extent in spacetime, and are capped off by boundaries at…
This thesis is an elaboration of recent results on the holographic re-construction of metric-like interactions in higher-spin gauge theories on anti-de Sitter space (AdS), employing their conjectured holographic duality with free conformal…
We introduce a notion of topological M-theory and argue that it provides a unification of form theories of gravity in various dimensions. Its classical solutions involve G_2 holonomy metrics on 7-manifolds, obtained from a topological…
There are effective field theories that cannot be embedded in any UV complete theory. We consider scalar effective field theories, with and without dynamical gravity, in $D$-dimensional anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetime with large radius and…
In this paper we investigate gravitational interactions of massive higher spin fields in three dimensional $AdS$ space with arbitrary value of cosmological constant including flat Minkowski space. We use frame-like gauge description for…
Can the holographic principle be extended beyond the well known AdS/CFT correspondence? During the last couple of years there has been a substantial amount of research trying to find answers for this question. In this work we provide a…
We study three-dimensional consistent truncations of type IIB supergravity which admit warped AdS$_3$ solutions. These theories contain subsectors that have no bulk dynamics. We show that the symplectic form for these theories, when…
It is shown that the Topological Massive and ``Self-dual'' theories, which are known to provide locally equivalent descriptions of spin 1 theories in 2+1 dimensions, have different global properties when formulated over topologically…
We study unitary conformal field theories with a unique stress tensor and at least one higher-spin conserved current in d>3 dimensions. We prove that every such theory contains an infinite number of higher-spin conserved currents of…
In this note, we propose gravity duals for 3+1 dimensional Lorentz invariant theories exhibiting discrete scale invariance. We construct non-singular solutions of a six dimensional gravitational theory that are warped products of $AdS_{5}$…