We construct extremal, spherically symmetric black hole solutions to 4D supergravity with charge assignments that preclude BPS-saturation. In particular, we determine the ground state energy as a function of charges and moduli. We find that the mass of the non-BPS black hole remains that of a marginal bound state of four basic constituents throughout the entire moduli space and that there is always a non-zero gap above the BPS bound.
We develop the formalism of supersymmetric localization in supergravity using the deformed BRST algebra defined in the presence of a supersymmetric background as recently formulated in arxiv:1806.03690. The gravitational functional integral localizes onto the cohomology of a global supercharge $Q_text{eq}$, obeying $Q_text{eq}^2=H$, where $H$ is a global symmetry of the background. Our construction naturally produces a twisted version of supergravity whenever supersymmetry can be realized off-shell. We present the details of the twisted graviton multiplet and ghost fields for the superconformal formulation of four-dimensional N=2 supergravity. As an application of our formalism, we systematize the computation of the exact quantum entropy of supersymmetric black holes. In particular, we compute the one-loop determinant of the $Q_text{eq} mathcal{V}$ deformation operator for the off-shell fluctuations of the Weyl multiplet around the $AdS_2 times S^2$ saddle. This result, which is consistent with the corresponding large-charge on-shell analysis, is needed to complete the first-principles computation of the quantum entropy.
Motivated by recent studies of supersymmetric black holes, we revisit the phase diagram of AdS black holes, whether BPS or not, with particular emphasis on the role of rotation. We develop BPS thermodynamics systematically and, in many explicit examples, we study its striking similarities with more familiar AdS black holes, as well as some differences. We highlight an important fugacity that preserves BPS saturation but is not captured by the supersymmetric index.
We construct black holes with scalar hair in a wide class of four-dimensional N=2 Fayet-Iliopoulos gauged supergravity theories that are characterized by a prepotential containing one free parameter. Considering the truncated model in which only a single real scalar survives, the theory is reduced to an Einstein-scalar system with a potential, which admits at most two AdS critical points and is expressed in terms of a real superpotential. Our solution is static, admits maximally symmetric horizons, asymptotically tends to AdS space corresponding to an extremum of the superpotential, but is disconnected from the Schwarzschild-AdS family. The condition under which the spacetime admits an event horizon is addressed for each horizon topology. It turns out that for hyperbolic horizons the black holes can be extremal. In this case, the near-horizon geometry is AdS_2 x H^2, where the scalar goes to the other, non-supersymmetric, critical point of the potential. Our solution displays fall-off behaviours different from the standard one, due to the fact that the mass parameter $m^2=-2/ell^2$ at the supersymmetric vacuum lies in a characteristic range $m^2_{BF}le m^2le m^2_{rm BF}+ell^{-2}$ for which the slowly decaying scalar field is also normalizable. Nevertheless, we identify a well-defined mass for our spacetime, following the prescription of Hertog and Maeda. Quite remarkably, the product of all horizon areas is not given in terms of the asymptotic cosmological constant alone, as one would expect in absence of electromagnetic charges and angular momentum. Our solution shows qualitatively the same thermodynamic behaviour as the Schwarzschild-AdS black hole, but the entropy is always smaller for a given mass and AdS curvature radius. We also find that our spherical black holes are unstable against radial perturbations.
The Hesse potential is constructed for a class of four-dimensional N=2 supersymmetric effective actions with S- and T-duality by performing the relevant Legendre transform by iteration. It is a function of fields that transform under duality according to an arithmetic subgroup of the classical dualities reflecting the monodromies of the underlying string compactification. These transformations are not subject to corrections, unlike the transformations of the fields that appear in the effective action which are affected by the presence of higher-derivative couplings. The class of actions that are considered includes those of the FHSV and the STU model. We also consider heterotic N=4 supersymmetric compactifications. The Hesse potential, which is equal to the free energy function for BPS black holes, is manifestly duality invariant. Generically it can be expanded in terms of powers of the modulus that represents the inverse topological string coupling constant, $g_s$, and its complex conjugate. The terms depending holomorphically on $g_s$ are expected to correspond to the topological string partition function and this expectation is explicitly verified in two cases. Terms proportional to mixed powers of $g_s$ and $bar g_s$ are in principle present.
Stationary, spherically symmetric solutions of N=2 supergravity in 3+1 dimensions have been shown to correspond to holomorphic curves on the twistor space of the quaternionic-Kahler space which arises in the dimensional reduction along the time direction. In this note, we generalize this result to the case of 1/4-BPS black holes in N=4 supergravity, and show that they too can be lifted to holomorphic curves on a twistor space Z, obtained by fibering the Grassmannian F=SO(8)/U(4) over the moduli space in three-dimensions SO(8,n_v+2)/SO(8)xSO(n_v+2). This provides a kind of octonionic generalization of the standard constructions in quaternionic geometry, and may be useful for generalizing the known BPS black hole solutions, and finding new non-BPS extremal solutions.