Semi-universality of CFT$_d$ entropy at large spin

TL;DR

This paper explores the universal features of the entropy of conformal field theories at large spin, revealing a semi-universal behavior in the scaling limit and analyzing phase transitions in holographic duals.

Contribution

It demonstrates a semi-universal scaling behavior of CFT entropy at large spin and provides explicit computations for free scalar and strongly coupled theories, including holographic phase transitions.

Findings

Entropy exhibits simple pole structure in scaled angular velocities.

Scaled entropy depends only on a subset of charges in the large spin limit.

Phase diagram shows sharp transitions between different gravitational phases.

Abstract

The thermal partition function, $Z$, of a $CFT_d$ on $S^{d-1}$ is parameterized by the inverse temperature $\beta$ along with $\lfloor d/2\rfloor$ angular velocities $\omega_i$. In this paper, we investigate the behaviour of this partition function when $n$ of the $\omega_i$ are scaled to unity (the largest allowed value) at fixed values of the other $(\lfloor d/2\rfloor-n)$ angular velocities. We argue that $\ln Z$ develops a simple pole in $(1-\omega_i)$ for each $\omega_i$ that is scaled to unity. The residue of this product of poles is a theory dependent (so non-universal) function of $\beta$ and the fixed angular velocities. The inverse Laplace transformation of this partition function constrains the functional form of the field theory entropy as a function of charges in a limit in which angular momenta and the twist are scaled as follows. While $n$ special angular momenta $J_1\ldots J_n$ are scaled to infinity, the twist and the other angular momenta - collectively denoted $x_i$ - are also taken to infinity but at the slower rate that ensures that the scaled charges $x_i/(J_1 J_2 \ldots J_n)^{\frac{1}{n+1}}$ are held fixed. In this limit, we demonstrate that the scaled entropy $S/(J_1 J_2 \ldots J_n)^{\frac{1}{n+1}}$ depends only on the $\lfloor d/2\rfloor-n+1$ scaled charges defined above (the precise form of this dependence is non-universal). We verify our predictions (and compute all non-universal functions) in the case of free scalar theories (which show surprisingly rich behaviour) as well as large $N$, strongly coupled ${\cal N}=4$ Yang Mills theory. The last theory is analyzed in the bulk via the AdS/CFT correspondence. In the scaling limit described above, its phase diagram displays sharp phase transitions between black hole, grey galaxy, and thermal gas phases.