Black Holes in Supergravity and String Theory

Stringtheoryhasbeentheleadingcandidateforaunifiedquantumtheoryofall
interactionsduringthe last15years. Thedevelopementsof the lastfiveyears
haveopenedthepossibilitytogobeyondperturbationtheoryandtoaddress
themostinterestingproblemsofquantumgravity.Amongthemostprominent
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of such problems are those related to black holes: the interpretation of the
Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, Hawking radiation and the information problem.
The present set of lecture notes aims to give a paedagogical introduction
to the subject of black holes in supergravity and string theory. It is primarily
intended for graduate students who are interested in black hole physics, quantum
gravity or string theory. No particular previous knowledge of these subjects is
assumed, the notes should be accessible for any reader with some background
in general relativity and quantum field theory. The basic ideas and techniques
are treated in detail, including exercises and their solutions. This includes
the definitions of mass, surface gravity and entropy of black holes, the laws
of black hole mechanics, the interpretation of the extreme Reissner-Nordstrom
black hole as a supersymmetric soliton, p-brane solutions of higher-dimensional
supergravity, their interpretation in string theory and their relation to D-branes,
dimensional reduction of supergravity actions, and, finally, the construction of
extreme black holes by dimensional reduction of p-brane configurations. Other
topics, which are needed to make the lectures self-contained are explained in
a summaric way. Busher T-duality is mentioned briefly and studied further in
some of the exercises. Many other topics are omitted, according to the motto
’less is more’.
A short commented list of references is given at the end of every section. It
is not intended to provide a representative or even full account of the literature,
but to give suggestions for further reading. Therefore we recommend, based on
subjective preference, some books, reviews and research papers.