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We examine the minimal constraints imposed by the Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) on the particle spectrum of a quantum gravity theory. Towers of super-extremal states have previously been argued to be required for consistency of the WGC under circle reduction. At the same time, there exist classes of theories where no tower of super-extremal particle states below the black hole threshold has been established with current techniques. We resolve this tension by arguing for the existence of a minimal radius for circle reductions of generic quantum gravity theories. Below this threshold, the notion of a circle compactification breaks down, bypassing the need for a tower of super-extremal states to satisfy the WGC after circle reduction. Based on this we propose that if a theory satisfies the WGC at the particle level below the black hole threshold, these states are sufficient for consistency under dimensional reduction, even in absence of a tower of super-extremal particles. Apart from general arguments, we provide independent evidence for this main result in F-, M- and string theory compactifications. According to the Emergent String Conjecture the only exception to the appearance of a minimal radius arises in asymptotically weak-coupling limits for heterotic strings, which aligns with the appearance of a weakly coupled super-extremal tower of particle states. This observation motivates a Minimal Weak Gravity Conjecture which states that towers of super-extremal particles occur if and only if they are required by consistency of the WGC under dimensional reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study canonical quantization of Jackiw-Teibelboim (JT) gravity coupled to a massless scalar field. We provide concrete expressions of matter SL(2, R) charges and the boundary matter operators in terms of the creation and annihilation operators in the scalar field. The matter charges are represented in the form of an oscillator (Jordon-Schwinger) realization of the SL(2, R) algebra. We also show how the gauge constraints are implemented classically, by matching explicitly classical solutions of Schwarzian dynamics with bulk solutions. We introduce n-point transition functions defined by insertions of boundary matter operators along the two-sided Lorentzian evolution, which may fully spell out the quantum dynamics in the presence of matter. For the Euclidean case, we proceed with a two-sided picture of the disk geometry and consider the two-sided 2-point correlation function where initial and final states are arranged by inserting matter operators in a specific way. For some simple initial states, we evaluate the correlation function perturbatively. We also discuss some basic features of the two-sided correlation functions with additional insertions of boundary matter operators along the two-sided evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing evidence that Hořava gravity may be a viable quantum theory of gravity. It is thus legitimate to expect that gravitational collapse in the full, non-projectable version of the theory should result in geometries that are free of space-time singularities. Previous analyses have shown that such geometries must belong to one of the following classes: simply connected regular black holes with inner horizons; non-connected black holes "hiding" a wormhole mouth (black bounces); simply connected or non-connected horizonless compact objects. Here, we consider a singular black hole in the low-energy limit of non-projectable Hořava gravity, i.e. khronometric theory, and describe examples of its possible "regularisations", covering all of the viable classes. To our knowledge, these examples constitute the first instances of black holes with inner universal horizons, of black bounces and of stars with a de Sitter core in the context of Lorentz-violating theories of gravity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study a precise and computationally tractable notion of operator complexity in holographic quantum theories, including the ensemble dual of Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity and two-dimensional holographic conformal field theories. This is a refined, "microcanonical" version of K-complexity that applies to theories with infinite or continuous spectra (including quantum field theories), and in the holographic theories we study exhibits exponential growth for a scrambling time, followed by linear growth until saturation at a time exponential in the entropy — a behavior that is characteristic of chaos. We show that the linear growth regime implies a universal random matrix description of the operator dynamics after scrambling. Our main tool for establishing this connection is a "complexity renormalization group" framework we develop that allows us to study the effective operator dynamics for different timescales by "integrating out" large K-complexities. In the dual gravity setting, we comment on the empirical match between our version of K-complexity and the maximal volume proposal, and speculate on a connection between the universal random matrix theory dynamics of operator growth after scrambling and the spatial translation symmetry of smooth black hole interiors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After considering the quantum corrections of Einstein-Maxwell theory, the effective theory will contain some higher-curvature terms and nonminimally coupled electromagnetic fields. In this paper, we study the first law of black holes in the gravitational electromagnetic system with the Lagrangian ℒ(gab, Rabcd, Fab). Firstly, we calculate the Noether charge and the variational identity in this theory, and then generically derive the first law of thermodynamics for an asymptotically flat stationary-axisymmetric symmetric black hole without the requirement that the electromagnetic field is smooth on the bifurcation surface. Our results indicate that the first law of black hole thermodynamics might be valid for the Einstein-Maxwell theory with some quantum corrections in the effective region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we argue for a close connection between the non-existence of global symmetries in quantum gravity and a unitary resolution of the black hole information problem. In particular we show how the essential ingredients of recent calculations of the Page curve of an evaporating black hole can be used to generalize a recent argument against global symmetries beyond the AdS/CFT correspondence to more realistic theories of quantum gravity. We also give several low-dimensional examples of quantum gravity theories which do not have a unitary resolution of the black hole information problem in the usual sense, and which therefore can and do have global symmetries. Motivated by this discussion, we conjecture that in a certain sense Euclidean quantum gravity is equivalent to holography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We point out that two-dimensional Russo-Susskind-Thorlacius (RST) model for evaporating black holes is locally equivalent — at the full quantum level — to flat-space Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity that was recently shown to be unitary. Globally, the two models differ by a reflective spacetime boundary added in the RST model. Treating the boundary as a local and covariant deformation of quantum JT theory, we develop sensible semiclassical description of evaporating RST black holes. Nevertheless, our semiclassical solutions fail to resolve the information recovery problem, and they do not indicate formation of remnants. This means that either the standard semiclassical method incorrectly describes the evaporation process or the RST boundary makes the flat-space JT model fundamentally inconsistent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study Einstein-Born-Infeld gravity and construct the dyonic (A)dS planar black holes in general even dimensions, that carry both the electric charge and magnetic fluxes along the planar space. In four dimensions, the solution can be constructed with also spherical and hyperbolic topologies. We study the black hole thermodynamics and obtain the first law. We also classify the singularity structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We show that the holographic description of a class of AdS black holes with scalar hair involves dual field theories with a double well effective potential. Black hole microstates have significant support around both vacua in the dual, which correspond to perturbative degrees of freedom on opposite sides of the horizon. A solvable toy-model version of this dual is given by a quantum mechanical particle in a double well potential. In this we show explicitly that the interactions replace the state-dependence that is needed to describe black hole microstates in a low energy effective model involving the tensor product of two decoupled harmonic oscillators. A naive number operator signals the presence of a firewall but a careful construction of perturbative states and operators extinguishes this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We show that the temperature and entropy of a BTZ black hole are invariant under T-duality to next to leading order in M⋆− 2, M⋆ being the scale suppressing higher-curvature/derivative terms in the Lagrangian. We work in the framework of a twoparameter family of theories exhibiting T-duality, which includes (but goes beyond) String Theory. Interestingly enough, the AdS/CFT correspondence enforces quantization conditions on these parameters. In the particular case of bosonic/heterotic string theory, our results extend those of a classical paper by Horowitz and Welch. For generic (albeit quantized) values of the parameters, it suggests that T-duality might be an interesting tool to constrain consistent low-energy effective actions while entailing physical equivalences outside String Theory. Moreover, it generates a new family of regular asymptotically flat black string solutions in three-dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical gravity is a quadratic curvature gravity in four dimensions which is ghost-free around the AdS background. Constructing a Vaidya-type exact solution, we show that the area of a black hole defined by a future outer trapping horizon can shrink by injecting a charged null fluid with positive energy density, so that a black hole is no more a one-way membrane even under the null energy condition. In addition, the solution shows that the Wald-Kodama dynamical entropy of a black hole is negative and can decrease. These properties expose the pathological aspects of critical gravity at the non-perturbative level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compute the leading logarithmic correction to black hole entropy on the non-BPS branch of 4D N≥2 supergravity theories. This branch corresponds to finite temperature black holes whose extremal limit does not preserve supersymmetry, such as the D0 − D6 system in string theory. Starting from a black hole in minimal Kaluza-Klein theory, we discuss in detail its embedding into N=8, 6, 4, 2 supergravity, its spectrum of quadratic fluctuations in all these environments, and the resulting quantum corrections. We find that the c-anomaly vanishes only when N≥6, in contrast to the BPS branch where c vanishes for all N≥2. We briefly discuss potential repercussions this feature could have in a microscopic description of these black holes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]