Marginal deformations & rotating horizons

Abstract

Motivated by the near-horizon geometry of four-dimensional extremal black holes, we study a disordered quantum mechanical system invariant under a global SU(2) symmetry. As in the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model, this system exhibits an approximate SL(2, ℝ) symmetry at low energies, but also allows for a continuous family of SU(2) breaking marginal deformations. Beyond a certain critical value for the marginal coupling, the model exhibits a quantum phase transition from the gapless phase to a gapped one and we calculate the critical exponents of this transition. We also show that charged, rotating extremal black holes exhibit a transition when the angular velocity of the horizon is tuned to a certain critical value. Where possible we draw parallels between the disordered quantum mechanics and charged, rotating black holes.