Orateur
Description
We explore the stringy structure of 1/2-BPS states in little string theory and its AdS3 limit using worldsheet techniques. Duality in the worldsheet theory maps the geometrical (Lunin-Mathur) description of these states to a non-compact Landau-Ginsburg model whose superpotential is determined by the fivebrane source configuration. Singular limits of the 1/2-BPS configuration space result when the fivebrane worldvolume self-intersects, as can be seen from both sides of the duality -- on the Landau-Ginsburg side from the degeneration of the superpotential, and on the geometrical side from an analysis of D-brane probes. These singular limits are a portal to black hole formation via the condensation of the W-branes that are becoming massless, and thus exhibit in the gravitational bulk description the central actors in the non-gravitational dual theory underlying black hole thermodynamics.
