Supersymmetric conical defects: Towards a string theoretic description of black hole formation - art. no. 064011

Conical defects. or point particles, in AdS(3) are one of the simplest nont rivial gravitating systems, and are particularly interesting because black holes can form from their collision. We embed the BPS conical defects of th ree dimensions into the,V=4b supergravity in six dimensions, which arises f rom the IlB string theory compactified on K3. The required Kaluza-Klein red uction of the six dimensional theory on a sphere is analyzed in detail, inc luding the relation to the Chem-Simons supergravities in three dimensions. We show that the six dimensional spaces obtained by embedding the 3D conica l defects arise in the near-horizon limit of rotating black strings. Variou s properties of these solutions are analyzed and we propose a representatio n of our defects in the CFT dual to asymptotically AdS(3) x S-3 spaces. Our work is intended as a first step towards analyzing colliding defects that form black holes.