Smoothed Transitions in Higher Spin AdS Gravity

TL;DR

This paper investigates the thermodynamic behavior of higher spin AdS gravity duals, finding no Hawking-Page phase transition due to the effects of degenerate light states and continuous orbifold descriptions in the dual CFTs.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of phase transitions in higher spin AdS/CFT models, showing the absence of Hawking-Page transitions in specific limits and settings.

Findings

No Hawking-Page transition at order one temperatures in 2D CFTs with W_N symmetry.

Partition function matches that of a free field theory under certain assumptions.

No evidence of phase transition in 3D Chern-Simons-matter theories at large level k.

Abstract

We consider CFTs conjectured to be dual to higher spin theories of gravity in AdS_3 and AdS_4. Two dimensional CFTs with W_N symmetry are considered in the lambda=0 (k --> infinity) limit, where they are conjectured to be described by continuous orbifolds. The torus partition function is computed, using reasonable assumptions, and equals that of a free field theory. We find no phase transition at temperatures of order one; the usual Hawking-Page phase transition is removed by the highly degenerate light states associated with conical defect states in the bulk. Three dimensional Chern-Simons-matter CFTs with vector-like matter are considered on T^3, where the dynamics is described by an effective theory for the eigenvalues of the holonomies. Likewise, we find no evidence for a Hawking-Page phase transition at large level k.