Luca Iliesiu (UC Berkeley) “Supersymmetric indices from the gravitational path integral”

Seminar Organizer


Event Details


Abstract: The count of microstates for supersymmetric black holes is typically obtained from a supersymmetric index in weakly-coupled string theory. I will explain how to find the saddles of the gravitational path integral corresponding to this index in a general theory of supergravity in asymptotically flat space. Such saddles exhibit a new attractor mechanism which explains the agreement between the string theory index and the macroscopic entropy. Time permitting, I will also describe how the phenomenon of wall crossing, in which the index changes discontinuously, appears at the level of the gravitational path integral.