Black Holes in Quasi-topological Gravity

TL;DR

The paper constructs a five-dimensional curvature-cubed gravity theory, termed quasi-topological gravity, to model a three-parameter family of holographic CFTs. It demonstrates that gravitons in AdS propagate via second-order Einstein dynamics despite higher-derivative bulk terms, enabling a straightforward holographic dictionary for stress-tensor correlators. The authors analyze black hole solutions (planar and curved horizons), derive their thermodynamics using Euclidean action and Wald entropy, and map the bulk couplings to CFT data. They further generalize to higher dimensions, relate the cubic interaction to Weyl contractions and the six-dimensional Euler density, and discuss potential extensions to more powers of curvature and broader holographic implications.

Abstract

We construct a new gravitational action which includes cubic curvature interactions and which provides a useful toy model for the holographic study of a three parameter family of four- and higher-dimensional CFT's. We also investigate the black hole solutions of this new gravity theory. Further we examine the equations of motion of quasi-topological gravity. While the full equations in a general background are fourth-order in derivatives, we show that the linearized equations describing gravitons propagating in the AdS vacua match precisely the second-order equations of Einstein gravity.