Disordered Quivers and Cold Horizons
Dionysios Anninos, Tarek Anous, Frederik Denef
TL;DR
The paper studies a supersymmetric quiver quantum mechanics with quenched random superpotential coefficients to model low-energy Higgs-branch dynamics of wrapped branes, which backreact to extremal black holes. Using the replica trick in the large-N limit, it derives and analyzes Schwinger-Dyson equations for bilocal fields, revealing an emergent time-reparametrization symmetry with SL(2,R) structure at low temperatures and a linear specific heat reminiscent of near-extremal black holes. It identifies a paramagnetic, replica-symmetric saddle that is locally stable against small fluctuations but shows hints of replica-symmetry breaking, suggesting possible glassy saddles. The work also contrasts Higgs and Coulomb branch sectors, finds distinct SL(2,R) invariant dynamics, and discusses zero-temperature scaling solutions, yielding both non-supersymmetric and supersymmetric low-energy branches with characteristic conformal-like correlators and thermodynamics.
Abstract
We analyze the low temperature structure of a supersymmetric quiver quantum mechanics with randomized superpotential coefficients, treating them as quenched disorder. These theories describe features of the low energy dynamics of wrapped branes, which in large number backreact into extremal black holes. We show that the low temperature theory, in the limit of a large number of bifundamentals, exhibits a time reparametrization symmetry as well as a specific heat linear in the temperature. Both these features resemble the behavior of black hole horizons in the zero temperature limit. We demonstrate similarities between the low temperature physics of the random quiver model and a theory of large $N$ free fermions with random masses.