No Arabic abstract
We introduce a description of a minimal surface in a space with boundary, as the world-hypersurface that the entangling surface traces. It does so by evolving from the boundary to the interior of the bulk under an appropriate geometric flow, whose parameter is the holographic coordinate. We specify this geometric flow for arbitrary bulk geometry. In the case of pure AdS spaces, we implement a perturbative approach for the solution of the flow equation around the boundary. We systematically study both the form of the perturbative solution as well as its dependence on the boundary conditions. This expansion is sufficient for the determination of all the divergent terms of the holographic entanglement entropy, including the logarithmic universal terms in odd spacetime bulk dimensions, for an arbitrary entangling surface, in terms of the extrinsic geometry of the latter.
We show that the Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) implies a nontrivial upper bound on the volumes of the minimal-volume cycles in certain homology classes that admit no calibrated representatives. In compactification of type IIB string theory on an orientifold $X$ of a Calabi-Yau threefold, we consider a homology class $[Sigma] in H_4(X,mathbb{Z})$ represented by a union $Sigma_{cup}$ of holomorphic and antiholomorphic cycles. The instanton form of the WGC applied to the axion charge $[Sigma]$ implies an upper bound on the action of a non-BPS Euclidean D3-brane wrapping the minimal-volume representative $Sigma_{mathrm{min}}$ of $[Sigma]$. We give an explicit example of an orientifold $X$ of a hypersurface in a toric variety, and a hyperplane $mathcal{H} subset H_4(X,mathbb{Z})$, such that for any $[Sigma] in H$ that satisfies the WGC, the minimal volume obeys $mathrm{Vol}(Sigma_{mathrm{min}}) ll mathrm{Vol}(Sigma_{cup})$: the holomorphic and antiholomorphic components recombine to form a much smaller cycle. In particular, the sub-Lattice WGC applied to $X$ implies large recombination, no matter how sparse the sublattice. Non-BPS instantons wrapping $Sigma_{mathrm{min}}$ are then more important than would be predicted from a study of BPS instantons wrapping the separate components of $Sigma_{cup}$. Our analysis hinges on a novel computation of effective divisors in $X$ that are not inherited from effective divisors of the toric variety.
Minimal surfaces in Euclidean space provide examples of possible non-compact horizon geometries and topologies in asymptotically flat space-time. On the other hand, the existence of limiting surfaces in the space-time provides a simple mechanism for making these configurations compact. Limiting surfaces appear naturally in a given space-time by making minimal surfaces rotate but they are also inherent to plane wave or de Sitter space-times in which case minimal surfaces can be static and compact. We use the blackfold approach in order to scan for possible black hole horizon geometries and topologies in asymptotically flat, plane wave and de Sitter space-times. In the process we uncover several new configurations, such as black helicoids and catenoids, some of which have an asymptotically flat counterpart. In particular, we find that the ultraspinning regime of singly-spinning Myers-Perry black holes, described in terms of the simplest minimal surface (the plane), can be obtained as a limit of a black helicoid, suggesting that these two families of black holes are connected. We also show that minimal surfaces embedded in spheres rather than Euclidean space can be used to construct static compact horizons in asymptotically de Sitter space-times.
We apply an arbitrary number of dressing transformations to a static minimal surface in AdS(4). Interestingly, a single dressing transformation, with the simplest dressing factor, interrelates the latter to solutions of the Euclidean non linear sigma model in dS(3). We present an expression for the area element of the dressed minimal surface in terms of that of the initial one and comment on the boundary region of the dressed surface. Finally, we apply the above formalism to the elliptic minimal surfaces and obtain new ones.
A class of exact membrane solutions is quantized.
Minimal area surfaces in AdS$_3$ ending on a given curve at the boundary are dual to planar Wilson loops in N=4 SYM. In previous work it was shown that the problem of finding such surfaces can be recast as the one of finding an appropriate parameterization of the boundary contour that corresponds to conformal gauge. A. Dekel was able to find such reparameterization in a perturbative expansion around a circular contour. In this work we show that for more general contours such reparameterization can be found using a numerical procedure that does not rely on a perturbative expansion. This provides further checks and applications of the integrability method. An interesting property of the method is that it uses as data the Schwarzian derivative of the contour and therefore it has manifest global conformal invariance. Finally, we apply Shanks transformation to extend the near circular expansion to larger deformations, the results are in agreement with the new method.