Statistical effects in large N supersymmetric gauge theories
Abstract
This thesis discusses statistical simplifications arising in supersymmetric gauge theories in the limit of large rank. Applications involve the physics of black holes and the problem of predicting the low energy effective theory from a landscape of string vacua. The first part of this work uses the AdS/CFT correspondence to explain properties of black holes. We establish that in the large charge sector of toric quiver gauge theories there exists a typical state whose structure is closely mimicked by almost all other states. Then, working in the settings of the half-BPS sector of [Special characters omitted.] = 4 super-Yang-Mills theory, we show that in the dual gravity theory semiclassical observations cannot distinguish a pair of geometries corresponding to two generic heavy states. Finally, we argue on general grounds that these conclusions are exponentially enhanced in quantum cosmological settings. The results establish that one may consistently account for the entropy of a black hole with heavy states in the dual field theory and suggest that the usual properties of black holes arise as artifacts of imposing a semiclassical description on a quantum system. In the second half we develop new tools to determine the infrared behavior of quiver gauge theories in a certain class. We apply the dynamical results to a toy model of the landscape of effective field theories defined at some high energy scale, and derive firm statistical predictions for the low energy effective theory.
Subject Area
Theoretical physics,Particle physics
Recommended Citation
Bartlomiej Stanislaw Czech,
"Statistical effects in large N supersymmetric gauge theories"
(January 1, 2009).
Dissertations available from ProQuest.
Paper AAI3363275.
http://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI3363275
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