Intermediate mass-ratio coalescences are potential signals of ground-based and spacebased gravitational observatories. Accurate modeling of their waveforms within general relativity can be achieved within black hole perturbation theory including self-force and finite size effects. In this paper, we present analytic results to the Teukolsky perturbation of equatorial orbits in the near-horizon region of an extremely high spin black hole including spin coupling and finite size effects at leading order in the high spin limit while neglecting the self-force. We detail the critical behavior occuring close to the smallest specific angular momentum, and we discuss features of spin and quadrupole couplings.

We study correlation functions of local operators and Wilson loop expectation values in the planar limit of a 4d N = 2 superconformal SU(N ) YM theory with hypermultiplets in the symmetric and antisymmetric representations of the gauge group. This so called E theory is closely related to N = 4 SYM and has a holographic description in terms of a Z 2 orientifold of AdS 5 × S 5 . Using recent matrix model results based on supersymmetric localization we develop efficient numerical methods to calculate two-and three-point functions of certain single trace operators as well as 1/2-BPS Wilson loop expectation values as a function of the 't Hooft coupling λ. We use our numerical results to arrive at simple analytic expressions for these correlators valid up to sixth order in the λ −1/2 strong coupling expansion. These results provide explicit field theory predictions for the α corrections to the supergravity approximation of type IIB string theory on the AdS 5 × S 5 /Z 2 orientifold.

We carry out an extensive study of the holographic aspects of any-dimensional higher-derivative Einstein-Maxwell theories in a fully analytic and non-perturbative fashion. We achieve this by introducing the d-dimensional version of Electromagnetic Quasitopological gravities: higher-derivative theories of gravity and electromagnetism that propagate no additional degrees of freedom and that allow one to study charged black hole solutions analytically. These theories contain non-minimal couplings, that in the holographic context give rise to a modified 〈JJ〉 correlator as well as to a general 〈TJJ〉 structure whose coefficients we compute. We constrain the couplings of the theory by imposing CFT unitarity and positivity of energy (which we show to be equivalent to causality in the bulk) as well as positive-entropy bounds from the weak gravity conjecture. The thermodynamic properties of the dual plasma at finite chemical potential are studied in detail, and we find that exotic zeroth-order phase transitions may appear, but that many of them are ruled out by the physical constraints. We further compute the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio, and we show that it can be taken to zero while respecting all the constraints, providing that the chemical potential is large enough. We also obtain the charged Rényi entropies and we observe that the chemical potential always increases the amount of entanglement and that the usual properties of Rényi entropies are preserved if the physical constraints are met. Finally, we compute the scaling dimension and magnetic response of twist operators and we provide a holographic derivation of the universal relations between the expansion of these quantities and the coefficients of 〈JJ〉 and 〈TJJ〉.

Our paper presents two main results. First, we study the renormalized free energies of Euclidean Einstein gravity in asymptotically AdS8 and various field theories on a squashed seven sphere. In the gravity theory, we demonstrate the absence of the Hawking-Page transition, while in the field theory, we focus on the O(N) vector model and the massless free fermion model. The conformal symmetry governs the universal behaviors of the free energies for small and large squashings, which we confirm numerically and analytically. Second, we evaluate the second-order derivative of CFT free energy with respect to the squashing parameter, finding universal results that hold for generic conformal field theories. We examine two different squashings, one with an SU(2) bundle, which is the primary focus of our paper, and another with a U(1) bundle, where our results align with the conjectured formula from the gravity side in the literature.