Journal article
On the spectrum of pure higher spin gravity
- Abstract:
- We study the spectrum of pure massless higher spin theories in AdS3. The light spectrum is given by a tower of massless particles of spin s = 2, ⋯ , N and their multi-particles states. Their contribution to the torus partition function organises into the vacuum character of the WN algebra. Modular invariance puts constraints on the heavy spectrum of the theory, and in particular leads to negative norm states, which would be inconsistent with unitarity. This negativity can be cured by including additional light states, below the black hole threshold but whose mass grows with the central charge. We show that these states can be interpreted as conical defects with deficit angle 2π(1 − 1/M). Unitarity allows the inclusion of such defects into the path integral provided M ≥ N.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, 463.3KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1007/JHEP12(2020)001
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Journal:
- Journal of High Energy Physics More from this journal
- Volume:
- 2020
- Issue:
- 12
- Article number:
- 1
- Publication date:
- 2020-12-01
- Acceptance date:
- 2020-10-28
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1029-8479
- ISSN:
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1126-6708
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1151108
- Local pid:
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pubs:1151108
- Deposit date:
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2020-12-30
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Alday, LF et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2020
- Rights statement:
- © The Authors. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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