Black Holes and Singularity Resolution in Higher Spin Gravity

Understand

We investigate higher spin theories of gravity in three dimensions based on the gauge group SL(N,R)*SL(N,R).

• In these theories the usual diffeomorphism symmetry is enhanced to include higher spin gauge transformations under which traditional geometric notions of curvature and causality are no longer invariant.
• This implies, for example, that apparently singular geometries can be rendered smooth by a gauge transformation, much like the resolution of orbifold singularities in string theory.
• The classical solutions, including the recently constructed higher spin black hole, are characterized by their holonomies around the non-contractible cycles of space-time.