Holographic Coulomb Branch Solitons, Quasinormal Modes, and Black Holes

Abstract: Four-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=4$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, at a point on the Coulomb branch where $SU(N)$ gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken to $SU(N-1)\times U(1)$, admits BPS solitons describing a spherical shell of electric and/or magnetic charges enclosing a region of unbroken gauge symmetry. These solitons have been proposed as gauge theory models for certain features of asymptotically flat extremal black holes. In the 't Hooft large $N$ limit with large 't Hooft coupling, these solitons are holographically dual to certain probe D3-branes in the $AdS_5 \times S^5$ solution of type IIB supergravity. By studying linearised perturbations of these D3-branes, we show that the solitons support quasinormal modes with a spectrum of frequencies sharing both qualitative and quantitative features with asymptotically flat extremal black holes.