2025/11/05 by Kim, Seok, Lee, Jehyun, Lee, Siyul +1 · 3 citations
#FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2511.03105
We study the BPS states of U(N)k× U(1)-k vector Chern-Simons theory on a sphere at weak coupling λ=(N)/(k)≪ 1, dual to an AdS4 higher spin gravity. Higher spin currents are well known to be anomalous at λ≠ 0. We show that these non-BPS higher spin particles form multi-particle `BPS bounds' at low energy, and interpret them as a primordial form of small black hole states. We also construct a new heavy BPS operator at N=2. We study the BPS phases of this system from the large N index at Planckian `temperatures'. The deconfined saddles at high temperature exist only above a threshold, similar to the BTZ black holes. The low temperature saddles are given by novel 2-cut eigenvalue distributions. Their phase transition involves subtle issues like the holomorphic anomaly and the background independence, whose studies we initiate. In particular, we obtain a lower bound on the critical temperature by studying the eigenvalue instantons.