Discontinuities of free theories on $AdS_2$
hep-th
/ Authors
/ Abstract
The partition functions of free bosons as well as fermions on $AdS_2$ are not smooth as a function of their masses. For free bosons, the partition function on $AdS_2$ is not smooth when the mass saturates the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound. We show that the expectation value of the scalar bilinear on $AdS_2$ exhibits a kink at the BF bound and the change in slope of the expectation value with respect to the mass is proportional to the inverse radius of $AdS_2$. For free fermions, when the mass vanishes the partition function exhibits a kink. We show that expectation value of the fermion bilinear is discontinuous and the jump in the expectation value is proportional to the inverse radius of $AdS_2$. We then show the supersymmetric actions of the chiral multiplet on $AdS_2\times S^1$ and the hypermultiplet on $AdS_2\times S^2$ demonstrate these features. The supersymmetric backgrounds are such that as the ratio of the radius of $AdS_2$ to $S^1$ or $S^2$ is dialled, the partition functions as well as expectation of bilinears are not smooth for each Kaluza-Klein mode on $S^1$ or $S^2$. Our observation is relevant for evaluating one-loop partition function in the near horizon geometry of extremal black holes.