Supergravity from D0-brane Quantum Mechanics

Understand

The gauge/gravity duality conjecture claims the equivalence between gauge theory and superstring/M-theory.

• In particular, the one-dimensional gauge theory of D0-branes and type IIA string theory should agree on properties of hot black holes.
• Type IIA superstring theory predicts the leading $N^2$ behavior of the black hole internal energy to be $E/N^2=a_0T^{14/5}+ a_1T^{23/5}+a_2T^{29/5}+\cdots$ with the supergravity prediction $a_0=7.41$ and unknown coefficients $a_1$, $a_2$, $\ldots$ associated with stringy corrections.
• In order to test this duality we perform a lattice study of the gauge theory and extract a continuum, large-$N$ value of $a_0=7.4\pm 0.5$---the first direct confirmation of the supergravity prediction at finite temperature---and constrain the stringy corrections ($a_1=-9.7\pm2.2$ and $a_2=5.6\pm1.8$).