Black Hole Bound States in AdS(3) x S**2

Abstract

We systematically construct the geometries dual to the 1+1 dimensional (0, 4) conformal field theories that arise in the low-energy description of wrapped M5-branes in S¹ × CY₃ compactifications of M-theory. This includes a large number of multicentered black hole bound states asymptotic to AdS₃ × S². In addition, we find many geometries that develop multiple, mutually decoupled AdS₃ × S² throats. We argue there is a useful one to one correspondence between the connected components of the space of solutions and particular limits of type IIA attractor flow trees. We point out that there is a thermodynamic instability of small supersymmetric BTZ black holes to localization on the S², a supersymmetric and exactly solvable analog of the well known AdS-Schwarzschild localization instability, and identify this with the "Entropy Enigma" in four dimensions. We discuss the phase transition this suggests, and initiate the CFT interpretation of these results.