Paper detail

Hot Halos and Galactic Glasses

We initiate a systematic study of the state space of non-extremal, stationary black hole bound states in four-dimensional N = 2 supergravity. Specifically, we show that an exponential multitude of classically stable "halo" bound states can be formed between large finite temperature D4-D0 black hole cores and much smaller, arbitrarily charged black holes at the same temperature. We map out in full the regions of existence for thermodynamically stable and metastable bound states in terms of the core's charges and temperature, as well as the region of stability of the core itself. Several features of these systems, such as a macroscopic configurational entropy and exponential relaxation timescales, are similar to those of the extended family of glasses. We draw parallels between the two with a view toward understanding complex systems in fundamental physics.