Effective microstructure
Effective microstructure
In AdS3/CFT2 duality, there are large families of smooth, horizonless microstate geometries that correspond to heavy pure states of the dual CFT. The metric and fluxes are complicated functions of up to five coordinates. There are also many duals of heavy pure states that cannot be described in supergravity, but only admit a worldsheet description. Extracting the physical properties of these solutions is technically challenging. In this paper, we show that there are much simpler effective descriptions of these solutions that capture many of their stringy and geometrical features, at the price of sacrificing supergravity smoothness. In particular, the effective description of some families of superstrata, and of certain worldsheet solutions, is given by easy-to-construct three-center solutions. For example, the effective description of a superstratum with a long AdS2 throat is a scaling, three-center solution in which the momentum wave is collapsed to a singular source at one of the three centers. This also highlights how momentum migrates away from the supertube locus in the back-reacted geometry. Our results suggest that effective descriptions can be extended to more general microstates, and that many singular multi-center solutions can in fact correspond to effective descriptions of smooth horizonless microstructure.
AdS-CFT Correspondence, Black Holes in String Theory, D-Branes
Bena, Iosif
216ba0a8-1a3a-4f4b-b43d-f964e41953d6
Dulac, Raphaël
486e639b-0cbf-490c-a5fd-61e12b309fb9
Martinec, Emil J.
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Shigemori, Masaki
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Turton, David
6ce84b30-3cc0-42aa-ace5-f298d4260e9b
Warner, Nicholas P.
ec710058-e4e8-4edc-b521-7205b70e09ff
17 December 2025
Bena, Iosif
216ba0a8-1a3a-4f4b-b43d-f964e41953d6
Dulac, Raphaël
486e639b-0cbf-490c-a5fd-61e12b309fb9
Martinec, Emil J.
650e0325-0c1c-4177-9475-4eaaf978cca8
Shigemori, Masaki
c9a1f8e8-3e89-4235-a66a-d0c66e855ff6
Turton, David
6ce84b30-3cc0-42aa-ace5-f298d4260e9b
Warner, Nicholas P.
ec710058-e4e8-4edc-b521-7205b70e09ff
Bena, Iosif, Dulac, Raphaël, Martinec, Emil J., Shigemori, Masaki, Turton, David and Warner, Nicholas P.
(2025)
Effective microstructure.
Journal of High Energy Physics, 2025 (12), [130].
(doi:10.1007/JHEP12(2025)130).
Abstract
In AdS3/CFT2 duality, there are large families of smooth, horizonless microstate geometries that correspond to heavy pure states of the dual CFT. The metric and fluxes are complicated functions of up to five coordinates. There are also many duals of heavy pure states that cannot be described in supergravity, but only admit a worldsheet description. Extracting the physical properties of these solutions is technically challenging. In this paper, we show that there are much simpler effective descriptions of these solutions that capture many of their stringy and geometrical features, at the price of sacrificing supergravity smoothness. In particular, the effective description of some families of superstrata, and of certain worldsheet solutions, is given by easy-to-construct three-center solutions. For example, the effective description of a superstratum with a long AdS2 throat is a scaling, three-center solution in which the momentum wave is collapsed to a singular source at one of the three centers. This also highlights how momentum migrates away from the supertube locus in the back-reacted geometry. Our results suggest that effective descriptions can be extended to more general microstates, and that many singular multi-center solutions can in fact correspond to effective descriptions of smooth horizonless microstructure.
Text
JHEP12(2025)130
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Accepted/In Press date: 8 November 2025
Published date: 17 December 2025
Additional Information:
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© The Author(s) 2025.
Keywords:
AdS-CFT Correspondence, Black Holes in String Theory, D-Branes
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 508661
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/508661
ISSN: 1126-6708
PURE UUID: 9cfb9a03-125b-4fed-8eb5-089cc19f8c96
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Date deposited: 28 Jan 2026 18:13
Last modified: 29 Jan 2026 04:13
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Contributors
Author:
Iosif Bena
Author:
Raphaël Dulac
Author:
Emil J. Martinec
Author:
Masaki Shigemori
Author:
Nicholas P. Warner
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