String Theory and Black Holes

Lecturer

Ashoke Sen, Harish-Chandra Research Institute

Course summary

In these lectures I shall describe the precision counting of microstates of a class of supersymmetric black holes in string theory in asymptotically flat space-time. We shall also compare the results with the macroscopic results given by the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy and corrections due to higher derivative / quantum effects. We shall first focus on one particular example, namely heterotic string theory compactified on a six dimensional torus, and then mention generalizations. The material covered in these lecture can be found in the review:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1008.3801.pdf

The introduction of the review describes the motivation for this study.

I shall not assume knowledge of world-sheet string theory, but some knowledge of D-branes and ten dimensional supergravity may be useful.

Lecture Schedule

• Lecture 1 - Monday, June 7 - 9:00 - 10:15 a.m.

• Lecture 2 - Tuesday, June 8 - 9:00 - 10:15 a.m.

• Lecture 3 - Wednesday, June 9 - 9:00 - 10:15 a.m.

• Lecture 4 - Thursday, June 10 - 9:00 - 10:15 a.m.