Critical Kaluza-Klein black holes and black strings in D = 10

Abstract

We construct static vacuum localized black holes and non-uniform black strings in ten spacetime dimensions, where one of the dimension is compactified on circle. We study the phase diagram of black objects with these boundary conditions, especially near the critical point where localized black holes and non-uniform black strings merge. Remarkably, we find that the merger happens at a cusp in the phase diagram. We verify that the critical geometry is controlled by a Ricci-flat double cone as previously predicted. However, unlike the lower dimensional cases, we find that physical quantities approach to their critical values according to a power law plus a logarithmic correction. We extract the critical exponents and find very good agreement with the predictions from the double cone geometry. According to holography, localized black holes and black strings are dual to thermal states of (1 + 1)-dimensional SU($N$) maximal Super-Yang Mills theory compactified on a circle; we recover and extend the details of the (recently found) 1st order phase transition in this system from the gravity side.