Large N BPS states and emergent quantum gravity

Abstract

This paper provides a heuristic derivation of how classical gravitational physics in the AdS/CFT correspondence appears from the strong dynamics of the N=4 SYM theory in a systematic way. We do this in a minisuperspace approximation by studying 1/8 BPS configurations. We show that this is related to a gauged matrix quantum mechanics of commuting matrices. We can show that our description matches the semiclassical physics of 1/8 BPS states in supergravity. We also provide a heuristic description of how massive strings appear in the geometry, and how at strong 't Hooft coupling they become local on the five sphere suggesting that they can be realized as a sigma model on a weakly curved background. In the process we also clarify some aspects of 1/2 BPS states. We also have a conjectured realization of some 1/8 BPS giant graviton wave functions in the dynamics, which captures all 1/8 BPS giant gravitons constructed by Mikhailov. This leads to a lot of different topology changes which can be treated heuristically.