Welcome Remarks by Prof. James Wells (LITP) Room: West Hall 340

Christoph Uhlemann (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) - F(4) Solutions in Complex Type IIB vs IKKT Room: West Hall 340

Gong Show (March 4th) Room: West Hall 340 Order of presentation: 1) Xuchen Cao - Gravitational Algebra with Two Surfaces 2) Seunggyu Kim - Fortuity and relevant deformation 3) Siyul Lee - Fortuity and Information 4) Themistocles Zikopoulos - Conformal Boundaries in Gravity

Kasia Budzik (Harvard University) - Finite-N indices from branes and negative branes Room: West Hall 340 Abstract: Finite-N effects in large-N gauge theories, such as trace relations, are expected to be dual to non-perturbative phenomena in string theory, such as Giant Graviton branes. A convenient setting to study these effects are supersymmetric indices of U(N) invariants. I will present a generalization of the Molien-Weyl formula computing generating functions of invariants of supergroups U(N|M), which arise as gauge groups of brane/negative brane systems in string theory. The formula leads to a new expansion relating finite-N and infinite-N indices of U(N) gauge theories. I will comment on its relation to Murthy's Giant Graviton expansion and suggest a physical interpretation in terms of "Koszul dual" branes and negative branes. This talk is based on arXiv:2509.20451 and work in progress with Davide Gaiotto.

Jonah Kudler-Flam (IAS) - Large fluctuations in the large-N limit Room: West Hall 340 Abstract: It has recently been argued that AdS/CFT states describing closed universes fail to admit a conventional large-N limit due to large fluctuations. Motivated by this, I re-examine the double-cone wormhole, a well-understood saddle contributing to the spectral form factor. The spectral form factor has similar fluctuations in the late-time regime where the double cone controls the semiclassical answer, obstructing a large-N limit. I then analyze correlations between theories at different values of N in general one-cut matrix models and in higher-dimensional AdS/CFT examples, and assess when an average over N in the CFT can (and cannot) reproduce the semiclassical double-cone contribution.

Ji Hoon Lee (ETH Zurich) - Polar states in AdS3 holography Room: West Hall 340

Juan Maldacena (IAS) - Near extremal black holes and D-branes Room: West Hall 340 Abstract: We consider the low energy dynamics of a near extremal black hole interacting with massless fields. We work in the approximation where we consider JT gravity plus a two dimensional conformal field that has transparent boundary condition at the boundary of AdS_2 and extends into a flat space with no gravity. We discuss the extreme low energy regime where we can neglect the Schwarzian action and the dynamics of the boundary gravitational degree of freedom is induced from the the CFT. We discuss the free energy and correlation functions.

Gong Show Room: West Hall 340 Order of presentation: 1) Justin Berman - Holographic Modular Flow in the Semiclassical Limit 2) Evan Deddo - Quantized Giant Gravitons as the "Periodic Table" of Supersymmetric States 3) Puxin Lin - Thermodynamics of de Sitter black holes from an observer perspective 4) Liza Rozenberg - Topological recursion in 3d gravity 5) Xiaoyi Shi - Can black holes preserve N > 4 supersymmetry?

Joaquin Turiaci (University of Washington) - Wormholes and anomalies: 3d gravity and fermionic CFT Room: West Hall 340

Davide Cassani (INFN Padova) - Saddles of the 5d gravitational index with different topologies Room: West Hall 340 Abstract: Five-dimensional supergravity presents a wealth of asymptotically flat supersymmetric solutions involving horizons with sphere, ring, or lens space topologies, as well as "bubbling" two-cycles. The talk will discuss how these solutions are related to saddles of the gravitational index.

Dario Martelli (Turin University) - Extremization and Localization for Supersymmetric Black Holes Room: West Hall 340 Abstract: I will discuss how the entropy of supersymmetric black holes and related gravitational configurations emerges from the extremization of suitable functionals computable via equivariant localization.

Public Talk by Juan Maldacena: The meaning of spacetime - Black holes, wormholes and quantum entanglement Room: 170

Hong Liu (MIT) - Holographic Origin of Wormholes Room: West Hall 340

Gong Show Room: West Hall 340 Order of presentation: 1) Nico Cooper - Holographic Equidistribution 2) Sabarenath Jayaprakash - On the four derivative completion of $5d$ $\mathcal{N} = 2$ supergravity coupled to vector multiplets 3) Diandian Wang - A random ensemble of BCFTs 4) Jingchao Zhang - A Universality Theorem for the Quantum Thermodynamics of Near-Extremal Black Holes

Chi-Ming Chang (Tsinghua University) - Fortuity and Quantum Corrections to Q-cohomology Room: West Hall 340 Abstract: In this talk, I will first give an introduction to fortuity: the fortuity property, the monotone/fortuitous classification of BPS states, and the bulk dual of these states. Next, I will talk about a non-renormalization conjecture that the Q-cohomology receives no quantum corrections, and a counter example to this conjecture. Finally, I will discuss a way of computing the quantum correction by the point-splitting regularization of operators and the OPE of operators.

Sam Van Leuven (University of Witwatersrand) - Superconformal indices in closed form and BPS spectroscopy Room: West Hall 340

Yiming Chen (Stanford University) - Fortuity and Bootstrap in Supersymmetric Matrix Quantum Mechanics Room: West Hall 340 Abstract: It has recently been proposed that supersymmetric black hole microstates exhibit “fortuity”: their very existence depends sensitively on the finite, precise values of N, the number of degrees of freedom in the dual theory. In the first half of the talk, I will discuss a simple matrix quantum mechanical model with a single adjoint fermion, that is exactly solvable yet contains a large number of fortuitous states. In the second half of the talk, by utilizing this model as a benchmark, I will describe an ongoing attempt in using the large N matrix bootstrap technique to learn about fortuitous or monotone states in matrix systems.

Sunjin Choi (Kavli IPMU) - Fortuity and hairy black holes in AdS Room: West Hall 340 Abstract: I will discuss a construction of supersymmetric hairy black holes in AdS5, motivated by an analysis of fortuitous states in N=4 SYM. Based on this construction, I will propose a microcanonical phase diagram in AdS5, exhibiting qualitative agreement with the numerically computed superconformal index. This perspective provides new insight into the structure of black hole microstates.

Emil Martinec (University of Chicago) - Brane stars and black holes Room: West Hall 340 Title: Brane stars and black holes Abstract: An effective action approach to supergravity solutions sourced by slightly separated fundamental strings and NS5-branes reveals a wealth of information about the structure and formation of BPS and near-BPS black holes, through the study of ultracompact BPS bound states of these brane constituents. The BPS solutions determine a near-BPS effective action that yields chaotic dynamics and a Schwarzian-like collective mode.

Gong Show Room: West Hall 340 Order of presentation: 1) Bahaa Elshimy - Towards a Bulk Dual of Toda Theory through $O(N)$ Vector Models 2) Michael Imseis - Marginal Operators from Celestial Diamonds 3) Dikshant Rathore - Symmetries and Deformations of the Symmetric Product Orbifold 4) Arielle Schutz - Scalar fields in the presence of an evaporating black hole 4) Zhencheng Wang - Reflection positivity and Hilbert space factorization in quantum gravity

Matthew Heydeman (Harvard University) - Towards a Microscopic Model of Near BPS Black Holes Room: West Hall 340

Anna Biggs (Princeton University) - A melonic quantum mechanical model without disorder Room: West Hall 340

Shota Komatsu (CERN) - No Shift, Sherlock Room: West Hall 340