We present an ansatz which makes the equations of motion more tractable for the simplest of Vasiliev’s four-dimensional higher spin theories. The ansatz is similar to axial gauge in electromagnetism. We present a broad class of solutions in the gauge where the spatial connection vanishes, and we discuss the lift of one of these solutions to a full spacetime solution via a gauge transformation.

We revisit some properties of AdS2 Einstein-Maxwell gravity with the aim of reconciling apparently conflicting results in prior literature. We show that the two dimensional theory can be obtained as a dimensional reduction of the three dimensional Einstein gravity with the CSS boundary condition. In general, this theory on AdS2 can be viewed as an effective theory of the near horizon geometry of a (near-)extremal black hole. We provide an interpretation of our results in terms of the microscopic description of an extremal black hole.

For spacetimes that are not asymptotic to anti-de Sitter Space (non AAdS), we adapt the Lewkowycz-Maldacena procedure to find the holographic entanglement entropy. The key observation, which to our knowledge is not very well appreciated, is that asymptotic boundary conditions play an essential role on extending the replica trick to the bulk. For non AAdS, we expect the following three main modifications: (1) the expansion near the special surface has to be compatible with the asymptotic expansion; (2) periodic conditions are imposed to coordinates on the phase space with diagonalized symplectic structure, not to all fields appearing in the action; (3) evaluating the entanglement functional using the boundary term method amounts to evaluating the presymplectic structure at the special surface, where some additional exact form may contribute. An explicit calculation is carried out for three-dimensional warped anti-de Sitter spacetime (WAdS3) in a consistent truncation of string theory, the so-called S-dual dipole theory. It turns out that the generalized gravitational entropy in WAdS3 is captured by the least action of a charged particle in WAdS3 space, or equivalently, by the geodesic length in an auxiliary AdS3. Consequently, the bulk calculation agrees with the CFT results, providing another piece of evidence for the WAdS3/CFT2 correspondence.

In [1] it was observed that asymptotic boundary conditions play an important role in the study of holographic entanglement beyond AdS/CFT. In particular, the Ryu-Takayanagi proposal must be modified for warped AdS 3 (WAdS 3) with Dirichlet boundary conditions. In this paper, we consider AdS 3 and WAdS 3 with Dirichlet-Neumann bound-ary conditions. The conjectured holographic duals are warped conformal field theories (WCFTs), featuring a Virasoro-Kac-Moody algebra. We provide a holographic calculation of the entanglement entropy and Rényi entropy using AdS 3 /WCFT and WAdS 3 /WCFT du-alities. Our bulk results are consistent with the WCFT results derived by Castro-Hofman-Iqbal using the Rindler method. Comparing with [1], we explicitly show that the holographic entanglement entropy is indeed affected by boundary conditions. Both results differ from the Ryu-Takayanagi proposal, indicating new relations between spacetime geometry and quantum entanglement for holographic dualities beyond AdS/CFT.

We explore an identity between two branching graphs and propose a physical meaning in the context of the gauge-gravity correspondence. From the mathematical point of view, the identity equates probabilities associated with GT, the branching graph of the unitary groups, with probabilities associated with Y, the branching graph of the symmetric groups. In order to furnish the identity with physical meaning, we exactly reproduce these probabilities as the square of three point functions involving certain hook-shaped backgrounds. We study these backgrounds in the context of LLM geometries and discover that they are domain walls interpolating two AdS spaces with different radii. We also find that, in certain cases, the probabilities match the eigenvalues of some observables, the embedding chain charges. We finally discuss a holographic interpretation of the mathematical identity through our results.

We propose a construction of Kahler and non-Kahler Calabi-Yau manifolds by branched double covers of twistor spaces. In this construction we use the twistor spaces of four-manifolds with self-dual conformal structures, with the examples of connected sum of n P2s. We also construct K3-fibered Calabi-Yau manifolds from the branched double covers of the blow-ups of the twistor spaces. These manifolds can be used in heterotic string compactifications to four dimensions. We also construct stable and polystable vector bundles. Some classes of these vector bundles can give rise to supersymmetric grand unified models with three generations of quarks and leptons in four dimensions.

We construct a generalization of twistor spaces of hypercomplex manifolds and hyper-Kahler manifolds M, by generalizing the twistor P1 to a more general complex manifold Q. The resulting manifold X is complex if and only if Q admits a holomorphic map to P1. We make branched double covers of these manifolds. Some class of these branched double covers can give rise to non-Kahler Calabi-Yau manifolds. We show that these manifolds X and their branched double covers are non-Kahler. In the cases that Q is a balanced manifold, the resulting manifold X and its special branched double cover have balanced Hermitian metrics.

The phase space of a particle or a mechanical system contains an intrinsic symplectic structure, and hence, it is a symplectic manifold. Recently, new invariants for symplectic manifolds in terms of cohomologies of differential forms have been introduced by Tseng and Yau. Here, we discuss the physical motivation behind the new symplectic invariants and analyze these invariants for phase space, i.e., the non-compact cotangent bundle.

A celebrated theorem of Kapranov states that the Atiyah class of the tangent bundle of a complex manifold X makes TX[−1] into a Lie algebra object in D+(X), the bounded below derived category of coherent sheaves on X. Furthermore, Kapranov proved that, for a Kähler manifold X, the Dolbeault resolution \Omega(T{1,0} X ) of TX[−1]is an L∞ algebra. In this paper, we prove that Kapranov’s theorem holds in much wider generality for vector bundles over Lie pairs. Given a Lie pair (L, A), i.e. a Lie algebroid L together with a Lie subalgebroid A, we define the Atiyah class αE of an A-module E as the obstruction to the existence of an A-compatible L-connection on E. We prove that the Atiyah classes αL/A and αE respectively make L/A[−1] and E[−1] into a Lie algebra and a Liealgebra module in the bounded below derived category D+(A), where A is the abelian category of left U(A)-modules and U(A) is the universal enveloping algebra of A. Moreover,we produce a homotopy Leibniz algebra and a homotopy Leibniz module stemming from the Atiyah classes of L/A and E, and inducing the afore said Lie structures in D+(A).

In this paper, we construct the bilinear identities for the wave functions of an extended Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (KP) hierarchy, which is the KP hierarchy with particular extended flows. By introducing an auxiliary parameter, whose flow corresponds to the so-called squared eigenfunction symmetry of KP hierarchy, we find the tau-function for this extended KP hierarchy. It is shown that the bilinear identities will generate all the Hirota's bilinear equations for the zero-curvature forms of the extended KP hierarchy, which includes two types of KP equation with self-consistent sources (KPSCS). It seems that the Hirota's bilinear equations obtained in this paper for KPSCS are in a simpler form by comparing with the results by X.B. Hu and H.Y. Wang.