Tidal Stresses and Energy Gaps in Microstate Geometries

TL;DR

This paper investigates the energy gaps and tidal stresses experienced by probes in microstate geometries, revealing that stringy effects occur before reaching the geometry's cap, impacting our understanding of quantum gravity and information scrambling.

Contribution

It introduces new families of microstate geometries and analyzes the onset of stringy transitions during infall, providing insights into the structure and dynamics of these geometries.

Findings

Deep geometries have the lowest energy gaps.

Tidal stresses reach the Planck scale before the probe reaches the cap.

Stringy transitions are inevitable during infall.

Abstract

We compute energy gaps and study infalling massive geodesic probes in the new families of scaling, microstate geometries that have been constructed recently and for which the holographic duals are known. We find that in the deepest geometries, which have the lowest energy gaps, the geodesic deviation shows that the stress reaches the Planck scale long before the probe reaches the cap of the geometry. Such probes must therefore undergo a stringy transition as they fall into microstate geometry. We discuss the scales associated with this transition and comment on the implications for scrambling in microstate geometries.