BPS black holes in flat space from quantum mechanics

Abstract

Despite extensive work on BPS black holes in 4d flat space, there is no direct microstate counting from D-brane quantum mechanics in regimes described by Einstein gravity. We derive an exact formula counting BPS configurations of the D-brane system corresponding to black holes in $N=8$ supergravity obtained from type II strings on $T^6$. As part of the derivation, we relate the BPS equations to a solvable modified Calogero-Moser system. The result agrees with the prediction from the modified elliptic genus of the D1-D5 system, providing a highly nontrivial test of the string dualities relating the two descriptions. We emphasize that this quantum mechanical system is, as a model of quantum black holes, simpler than BFSS and propose some numerical tests to explore this.

arXiv comment35 pages+appendix