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A<sc>bstract</sc> Near-extremal black holes are subject to large quantum effects, which modify their low-temperature thermodynamic behavior. Hitherto, these quantum effects were analyzed by separating the geometry into the near-horizon region and its exterior. It is desirable to understand and reproduce such corrections from the full higher-dimensional asymptotically flat or AdS geometry’s perspective. We address this question in this article and fill this gap. Specifically, we find off-shell eigenmodes of the quadratic fluctuation operator of the Euclidean gravitational dynamics, with eigenvalues that vanish linearly with temperature. We illustrate this for BTZ and neutral black holes with hyperbolic horizons in AdS in Einstein-Hilbert theory, and for the charged black holes in Einstein-Maxwell theory. The linear scaling with Matsubara frequency, which is a distinctive feature of the modes, together with the fact that their wavefunctions localize close to the horizon as we approach extremality, identifies them as responsible for the aforementioned quantum effects. We provide a contour prescription to deal with the sign indefiniteness of the Euclidean Einstein-Maxwell action, which we derive to aid our analysis. We also resolve a technical puzzle regarding modes associated with rotational isometries in stationary black hole spacetimes.more » « lessFree, publicly-accessible full text available April 1, 2026
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A<sc>bstract</sc> We examine the thermodynamics of a near-extremal Kerr black hole, and demonstrate that the geometry behaves as an ordinary quantum system with a vanishingly small degeneracy at low temperatures. This is in contrast with the classical analysis, which instead predicts a macroscopic entropy for the extremal Kerr black hole. Our results follow from a careful analysis of the gravitational path integral. Specifically, the low temperature canonical partition function behaves as$$ Z\sim {T}^{\frac{3}{2}}\ {e}^{S_0+c\log {S}_0} $$ , withS0the classical degeneracy andca numerical coefficient we compute. This is in line with the general expectations for non-supersymmetric near-extremal black hole thermodynamics, as has been clarified in the recent past, although cases without spherical symmetry have not yet been fully analyzed until now. We also point out some curious features relating to the rotational zero modes of the near-extremal Kerr black hole background that affects the coefficientc. This raises a puzzle when considering similar black holes in string theory. Our results generalize to other rotating black holes, as we briefly exemplify.more » « less
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A<sc>bstract</sc> The gravitational path integral can be used to compute the number of black hole states for a given energy window, or the free energy in a thermal ensemble. In this article we explain how to use the gravitational path integral to compute the separate number of bosonic and fermionic black hole microstates. We do this by comparing the partition function with and without the insertion of (−1)F. In particular we introduce a universal rotating black hole that contributes to the partition function in the presence of (−1)F. We study this problem for black holes in asymptotically flat space and in AdS, putting constraints on the high energy spectrum of holographic CFTs (not necessarily supersymmetric). Finally, we analyze wormhole contributions to related quantities.more » « less
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A<sc>bstract</sc> Generalizing previous results for$$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 0 and$$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 1, we analyze$$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 2 JT supergravity on asymptotically AdS2spaces with arbitrary topology and show that this theory of gravity is dual, in a holographic sense, to a certain random matrix ensemble in which supermultiplets of differentR-charge are statistically independent and each is described by its own$$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 2 random matrix ensemble. We also analyze the case with a time-reversal symmetry, either commuting or anticommuting with theR-charge. In order to compare supergravity to random matrix theory, we develop an$$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 2 analog of the recursion relations for Weil-Petersson volumes originally discovered by Mirzakhani in the bosonic case.more » « less
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A bstract We analyze deformations of $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 1 Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) supergravity by adding a gas of defects, equivalent to changing the dilaton potential. We compute the Euclidean partition function in a topological expansion and find that it matches the perturbative expansion of a random matrix model to all orders. The matrix model implements an average over the Hamiltonian of a dual holographic description and provides a stable non-perturbative completion of these theories of $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 1 dilaton-supergravity. For some range of deformations, the supergravity spectral density becomes negative, yielding an ill-defined topological expansion. To solve this problem, we use the matrix model description and show the negative spectrum is resolved via a phase transition analogous to the Gross-Witten-Wadia transition. The matrix model contains a rich and novel phase structure that we explore in detail, using both perturbative and non-perturbative techniques.more » « less
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Abstract Due to the failure of thermodynamics for low temperature near-extremal black holes, it has long been conjectured that a ‘thermodynamic mass gap’ exists between an extremal black hole and the lightest near-extremal state. For non-supersymmetric near-extremal black holes in Einstein gravity with an AdS 2 throat, no such gap was found. Rather, at that energy scale, the spectrum exhibits a continuum of states, up to non-perturbative corrections. In this paper, we compute the partition function of near-BPS black holes in supergravity where the emergent, broken, symmetry is PSU (1, 1|2). To reliably compute this partition function, we show that the gravitational path integral can be reduced to that of a N = 4 supersymmetric extension of the Schwarzian theory, which we define and exactly quantize. In contrast to the non-supersymmetric case, we find that black holes in supergravity have a mass gap and a large extremal black hole degeneracy consistent with the Bekenstein–Hawking area. Our results verify a plethora of string theory conjectures, concerning the scale of the mass gap and the counting of extremal micro-states.more » « less
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