Probing higher spin black holes from CFT

Abstract

In a class of 2D CFTs with higher spin symmetry, we compute thermal two-point functions of certain scalar primary operators in the presence of nonzero chemical potential for higher spin charge. These are shown to agree with the same quantity calculated holographically using scalar fields propagating in a charged black hole background of 3D higher spin gravity. This match serves as further evidence for the duality between W_N minimal models at large central charge and 3D higher spin gravity. It also supports a recent prescription for computing boundary correlators of multi-trace scalar primary operators in higher spin theories.