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Abstract We study the scattering of fermions off ’t Hooft lines in the Standard Model. A long-standing paradox suggests that the outgoing fermions necessarily carry fractional quantum numbers. In a previous paper, we resolved this paradox in the context of a number of toy models where we showed that the outgoing radiation is created by operators that are attached to a co-dimension 1 topological surface. This shifts the quantum numbers of the outgoing states associated to non-anomalous symmetries to be integer valued as required, while the quantum numbers associated to anomalous symmetries are fractional. Here we apply these ideas to the Standard Model.

Abstract An often fruitful route to study quantum gravity is the determination and study of quantum mechanical models — that is, models with finite degrees of freedom — that capture the dynamics of a black hole’s microstates. An example of such a model is the superconformal quantum mechanics of Yang-Mills instantons, which has a proposed gravitational dual description as M-theory on a background of the form X 7 × S 4. This model arises in the strongly-coupled limit of the BFSS matrix model with additional fundamental hypermultiplets, offering a route towards useful numerical simulation. We construct a six-parameter black hole solution in this theory, which is generically non-supersymmetric and non-extremal, and is shown to arise in an “ultra-spinning” limit of the recently-found six-parameter AdS7 solution. We compute its thermodynamic properties, and show that in the supersymmetric limit the entropy and on-shell action match precisely the expected results as computed from the superconformal index of the quantum mechanics, to leading order in the supergravity regime. The low-lying spectrum thus provides access to the dynamics of near-extremal black holes, whose spectra are expected to receive strong quantum corrections.

Abstract We study a limit in which a relativistic CFT reduces to conformal quantum mechanics, and relate the partition functions of the two theories. When the initial CFT is holographic, our limit coincides with an ultra-spinning limit in the gravity dual. We therefore propose that ultra-spinning black holes are dual to an appropriate ensemble in finite-dimensional conformal quantum mechanics. The limit is studied in detail for SCFTs in four and six dimensions. These theories have a superconformal index which can be computed by gluing together two or more blocks. Applying our limit to the index effectively isolates a single such block. Our results therefore suggest that ultra-spinning black holes play the role of blocks in the gravitational dual of holomorphic factorisation.

Abstract We construct a general asymptotically locally AdS7 stationary black hole solution of 7d maximal gauged supergravity with three angular momenta and two electric charges. When embedded in 11d supergravity the black hole describes the backreaction of N coincident rotating M5-branes. We study the thermodynamic properties of the black hole and present explicit expressions for its entropy, energy, electric charges, and angular momenta. We show that in the supersymmetric limit of the solution its entropy and on-shell action precisely agree with the result for the path integral of the holographically dual 6d N $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = (2, 0) SCFT on S 1 × S 5 to leading order in the large N limit.

Abstract We provide evidence for a holographic duality between superconformal quantum mechanics on the moduli space of Yang-Mills instantons and M-theory in certain asymptotically AdS 7 × S 4 backgrounds with a plane-wave boundary metric. We show that the gravitational background admits a supersymmetric black hole solution whose entropy is precisely reproduced by the superconformal index of the dual quantum mechanics.

Abstract Recently, a class of non-Lorentzian supersymmetric Lagrangian field theories was considered, in some cases describing M-theory brane configurations, but more generally found as fixed points of non-Lorentzian RG flows induced upon Lorentzian theories. In this paper, we demonstrate how the dynamics of such theories can be reduced to motion on the supersymmetric moduli space of BPS solitons of the parent theory. We focus first on the N $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = (1, 1) σ-model in (1 + 1)-dimensions with potential, where we produce a su persymmetric extension to the standard geodesic approximation for slow kink motion. We then revisit the (4 + 1)-dimensional Yang-Mills-like theory with 24 supercharges describing a null compactification of M5-branes. We show that the theory reduces to a σ-model on instanton moduli space, extended by couplings to additional fields from the parent theory, and possessing (8+8) super(conformal) symmetries along with 8 further fermionic shift symmetries. We derive this model explicitly for the single SU(2) instanton.

Abstract We describe a general process where a non-Lorentzian rescaling of a supersymmetric field theory leads to a scale-invariant fixed point action without Lorentz invariance but where the supersymmetry is preserved or even enhanced. We apply this procedure to five-dimensional maximally supersymmetric super-Yang-Mills, leading to a field theory with 24 super(conformal) symmetries. We also apply this procedure to the BLG model with 32 super(conformal) symmetries and ABJM models with 24 super(conformal) symmetries.