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Motivated by the AdS/CFT correspondence, new supersymmetric solutions to Type IIB and Type IIA supergravity are presented. These solutions contain $AdS_5$ or $AdS_4$ factors and are generated using T-duality symmetries of supergravity. The technique used to generate these solutions consists of performing a series of non-Abelian and Abelian T-dualities, sometimes with coordinate shifts in-between, to Freund-Rubin type seed backgrounds. An added bonus of the gauge fixing procedure inherent in non-Abelian T-Duality is the freedom to generate backgrounds with extra free parameters, some examples of which are presented. Aspects of the dual field theories of these new solutions are analyzed using holography techniques. The supersymmetry of these new backgrounds is also discussed. In addition to supergravity backgrounds with AdS, the study of generalized Calabi-Yau manifolds in the context of flux compactifications is briefly reviewed. The particular case of the resolved cone over $Y^{p,q}$ and its admission of generalized SU(3) structure solutions is examined. Contrary to geometries with $AdS$ factors, whose field theory duals are conformal field theories, these types of geometries can be phenomenologically interesting to study, as their gauge theory duals are minimally supersymmetric and confining, thus they could someday help aid our understanding of strongly-coupled QCD (Quantum Chromodynamics).

The holographic principle has become an extraordinary tool in theoretical physics, most notably in the form of the Anti-deSitter Conformal Field Theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence, in which classical gravitational degrees of freedom in N-dimensions are related quantum field theory degrees of freedom in N − 1 dimensions in the limit of a large number of fields. Here we present an account of the AdS/CFT correspondence, also known as the gauge/gravity duality, from its origins in the large N 'tHooft expansion, up to Maldacena's proposal that type IIB string theory in the presences of D-branes at low energy is dual to an N = 4, d = 4, U(N) super Yang-Mills on AdS5 × S5 . We begin with an extensive review of (super)string theory including D-branes. We then present the general formulation of the AdS/CFT in the supergravity background of AdS5 × S5 , along with several examples of how it is used in terms of the identification of bulk fields with operators on the bound- ary of a CFT. We move on to discuss two applications of the gauge/gravity duality. The first is the application of the holographic gauge/gravity correspondence to the QCDk-string. The second applies the AdS/CFT formalism to a Kerr black hole solution embedded in 10-dimensional heterotic sting theory. These two applications of the holographic gauge/gravity duality comprise the original work presented here. We follow with summaries and discussions of the background material, the original work, and future investigations.

The experiments performed at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Lab have discovered a state of matter called the strongly coupled quark-gluon plasma (sQGP). The strong coupling has limited the ability of the standard theory to describe such matter, namely Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). However, string theory's anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence has provided a new way to study the situation and in an analytical manner. So far, hydrodynamic properties of RHIC's plasma, such as elliptic flow and longitudinal expansion, have been seen to follow from classical supergravity calculations. In this dissertation I discuss some of the field's development as well as the research done by the author and collaborators.

In the following thesis, I will conduct a thermodynamic analysis of the Taub-NUT spacetime in various dimensions, as well as show uses for Taub-NUT and other Hyper-Kahler spacetimes. <br /><br /> Thermodynamic analysis (by which I mean the calculation of the entropy and other thermodynamic quantities, and the analysis of these quantities) has in the past been done by use of background subtraction. The recent derivation of the (A)dS/CFT correspondences from String theory has allowed for easier and quicker analysis. I will use Taub-NUT space as a template to test these correspondences against the standard thermodynamic calculations (via the N&ouml;ether method), with (in the Taub-NUT-dS case especially) some very interesting results. <br /><br /> There is also interest in obtaining metrics in eleven dimensions that can be reduced down to ten dimensional string theory metrics. Taub-NUT and other Hyper-Kahler metrics already possess the form to easily facilitate the Kaluza-Klein reduction, and embedding such metrics into eleven dimensional metrics containing M2 or M5 branes produces metrics with interesting Dp-brane results.

In this thesis we study the properties of strongly-coupled large-N conformal field theories (CFT’s) using AdS/CFT correspondence. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction. In Chapter 2 we study the shear viscosity of strongly-coupled large-N conformal field theories. We find that it is affected by \(R^2\) corrections to the AdS action and present an example of 4D theory in which the the conjectured universal lower bound on viscosity-to-entropy ratio \(\eta/s > 1/4 \pi\) is violated by 1/N corrections. This fact proves that there is no universal lower bound of \(1/4 \pi\) on viscosity-to-entropy ratio and may be relevant for the studies of QCD quark-gluon plasma for which this ratio is experimentally found to be close to \(1/4 \pi\). In Chapter 3 we study the formation of the electron star in 4D AdS space. We show that in a gravity theory with charged fermions a layer of charged fermion fluid may form at a finite distance from the charged black hole. We show that these “electron stars” are candidate gravity duals for strongly interacting fermion systems at finite density and finite temperature. Entropy density for such systems scales as \(s \sim T^{2/z}\) at low temperatures as expected from IR criticality of electron stars solutions. / Physics

In this thesis we investigate two different aspects of the AdS/CFT correspondence. We first investigate the holographic AdS/CMT correspondence. Gravitational backgrounds in d+2 dimensions have been proposed as holographic duals to Lifshitz-like theories describing critical phenomena in d+1 dimensions with critical exponent z&gt;1. We numerically explore a dilaton-Einstein-Maxwell model admitting such backgrounds as solutions. We show how to embed these solutions into AdS space for a range of values of z and d. We next investigate the AdS3/CFT2 correspondence and focus on the microscopic CFT description of the D1-D5 system on T^4*S_1. In the context of the fuzzball programme, we investigate deforming the CFT away from the orbifold point and study lifting of the low-lying string states. We start by considering general 2D orbifold CFTs of the form M^N/S_N, with M a target space manifold and S_N the symmetric group. The Lunin-Mathur covering space technique provides a way to compute correlators in these orbifold theories, and we generalize this technique in two ways. First, we consider excitations of twist operators by modes of fields that are not twisted by that operator, and show how to account for these excitations when computing correlation functions in the covering space. Second, we consider non-twist sector operators and show how to include the effects of these insertions in the covering space. Using the generalization of the Lunin-Mathur symmetric orbifold technology and conformal perturbation theory, we initiate a program to compute the anomalous dimensions of low-lying string states in the D1-D5 superconformal field theory. Our method entails finding four-point functions involving a string operator O of interest and the deformation operator, taking coincidence limits to identify which other operators mix with O, subtracting conformal families of these operators, and computing their mixing coefficients. We find evidence of operator mixing at first order in the deformation parameter, which means that the string state acquires an anomalous dimension. After diagonalization this will mean that anomalous dimensions of some string states in the D1-D5 SCFT must decrease away from the orbifold point while others increase. Finally, we summarize our results and discuss some future directions of research.

In this thesis we investigate two different aspects of the AdS/CFT correspondence. We first investigate the holographic AdS/CMT correspondence. Gravitational backgrounds in d+2 dimensions have been proposed as holographic duals to Lifshitz-like theories describing critical phenomena in d+1 dimensions with critical exponent z&gt;1. We numerically explore a dilaton-Einstein-Maxwell model admitting such backgrounds as solutions. We show how to embed these solutions into AdS space for a range of values of z and d. We next investigate the AdS3/CFT2 correspondence and focus on the microscopic CFT description of the D1-D5 system on T^4*S_1. In the context of the fuzzball programme, we investigate deforming the CFT away from the orbifold point and study lifting of the low-lying string states. We start by considering general 2D orbifold CFTs of the form M^N/S_N, with M a target space manifold and S_N the symmetric group. The Lunin-Mathur covering space technique provides a way to compute correlators in these orbifold theories, and we generalize this technique in two ways. First, we consider excitations of twist operators by modes of fields that are not twisted by that operator, and show how to account for these excitations when computing correlation functions in the covering space. Second, we consider non-twist sector operators and show how to include the effects of these insertions in the covering space. Using the generalization of the Lunin-Mathur symmetric orbifold technology and conformal perturbation theory, we initiate a program to compute the anomalous dimensions of low-lying string states in the D1-D5 superconformal field theory. Our method entails finding four-point functions involving a string operator O of interest and the deformation operator, taking coincidence limits to identify which other operators mix with O, subtracting conformal families of these operators, and computing their mixing coefficients. We find evidence of operator mixing at first order in the deformation parameter, which means that the string state acquires an anomalous dimension. After diagonalization this will mean that anomalous dimensions of some string states in the D1-D5 SCFT must decrease away from the orbifold point while others increase. Finally, we summarize our results and discuss some future directions of research.

In this thesis, we study the energy extraction from rotating black holes in anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetime (Kerr-AdS black holes), via the Blandford-Znajek (BZ) process. The motivation is the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence which provides a duality between gravitational physics in asymptotically AdS spacetimes and lower dimensional boundary field theories. The BZ process operates via a force-free magnetosphere around black holes and the rotational energy of the black hole is extracted electromagnetically in the form of Poynting flux. The major part of the thesis is devoted to obtaining force-free solutions in the Kerr-AdS background, which generalize traditional BZ solutions in the asymptotically flat Kerr background. Given the solutions, we use the AdS/CFT to infer dual descriptions in terms of the boundary field theory, which hopefully will lead to a better understanding of the energy extraction for rotating black holes. / Graduate

The discovery of integrability on both sides of the duality between planar N=4 super Yang-Mills theory and free type IIB string theory in AdS5 × S5 has lead to great progress in our understanding of the AdS/CFT correspondence. Similar integrable structures also appear in the more recent three-dimensional superconformal N=6 Chern-Simons-matter theory constructed by Aharony, Bergman, Jafferis and Maldacena (ABJM), as well as in its gravity dual, type IIA string theory on AdS4 × CP3. However, new interesting complications arise in the AdS4/CFT3 duality. In the conjectured all-loop Bethe equations by Gromov and Vieira the dispersion relation of the magnons has a non-trivial coupling dependence which is parametrized by a function that is only known to the leading order at weak and strong coupling. In the first part of this thesis I discuss our calculations of the next-to-leading correction to this function at weak coupling. We compute this function from four-loop Feynman diagrams in the SU(2) × SU(2) sector of the ABJM model. As a consistency check we have performed the calculation both in a component formalism and using superspace techniques. At strong coupling the fundamental excitations of the integrable model are the giant magnons. The topic of the second part of this thesis is the spectrum of these giant magnons in CP3. Furthermore, I discuss our analyses of the finite-size corrections beyond the asymptotic Bethe ansatz. At weak coupling we have computed the leading four-loop wrapping diagrams in the ABJM model. At the strong coupling side of the duality I discuss our results for the exponentially suppressed finite-size corrections to the energy of giant magnons.