BHLOC · The Quantum Entropy of Extremal Black Holes

The Quantum Entropy of Extremal Black Holes

Quantum Properties of Black Holes are an important and long-standing puzzle in theoretical physics. The overarching aim of the project was to employ holography, in the form of the AdS/CFT correspondence, to explicate properties of black holes, in particular, their entropy. In related work, we also explored the viability of applying the AdS/CFT correspondence to other long standing and prohibitively difficult problems, such as a formulation of string theory in the extremely high energy ('tensionless') limit, as well as construction of theories of massless fields of spins higher than that of the graviton to arrive at very encouraging results, obtained in the quantum gravitational regime. A related question regarding AdS/CFT dualities is if they are always true at the quantum level, i.e. can they always be used to study quantum gravity. While investigating this question we found counter-examples. That is to say, AdS/CFT dualities that are true in the classical gravity limit, but appear to break down when we incorporate quantum effects. The dualities involving string theory itself passed these tests successfully.

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