On the existence of supergravity duals to D1--D5 CFT states

TL;DR

This paper identifies conditions under which states in the D1-D5 CFT have semi-classical supergravity duals, revealing how quantum interference affects gravity and showing that thermal states lack well-defined classical geometries.

Contribution

It introduces a metric operator in the D1-D5 CFT's 1/2-BPS sector, linking CFT states to gravity multipoles and analyzing quantum interference effects on the dual geometry.

Findings

Eigenstates have well-defined semi-classical duals.

Quantum interference can influence gravity observables.

Thermal states exhibit large multipole fluctuations.

Abstract

We define a metric operator in the 1/2-BPS sector of the D1-D5 CFT, the eigenstates of which have a good semi-classical supergravity dual; the non-eigenstates cannot be mapped to semi-classical gravity duals. We also analyse how the data defining a CFT state manifests itself in the gravity side, and show that it is arranged into a set of multipoles. Interestingly, we find that quantum mechanical interference in the CFT can have observable manifestations in the semi-classical gravity dual. We also point out that the multipoles associated to the normal statistical ensemble fluctuate wildly, indicating that the mixed thermal state should not be associated to a semi-classical geometry.