Chemistry of Chern-Simons Supergravity: reduction to a BPS kink, oxidation to M-theory and thermodynamical aspects

Abstract

We construct a supersymmetric extension of the two dimensional Kaluza-Klein-reduced gravitational Chern-Simons term, and globally study its solutions, labelled by mass and U(1) charge c. The kink solution is BPS, and in an appropriate conformal frame all solutions asymptotically approach AdS. The thermodynamics of the Hawking effect yields interesting behavior for the specific heat and hints at a Hawking-Page-like transition at T_{critical} \sim c^{3/2}. We address implications for higher dimensions ("oxidation"), in particular D=3,4 and 11, and comment briefly on AdS/CFT aspects of the kink.

39 pages, 2 figures. v2: reference added, minor changes, typos