Heat Kernels on the AdS(2) cone and Logarithmic Corrections to Extremal Black Hole Entropy

Abstract

We develop new techniques to efficiently evaluate heat kernel coefficients for the Laplacian in the short-time expansion on spheres and hyperboloids with conical singularities. We then apply these techniques to explicitly compute the logarithmic contribution to black hole entropy from an N=4 vector multiplet about a Z(N) orbifold of the near-horizon geometry of quarter--BPS black holes in N=4 supergravity. We find that this vanishes, matching perfectly with the prediction from the microstate counting. We also discuss possible generalisations of our heat kernel results to higher-spin fields over Z(N) orbifolds of higher-dimensional spheres and hyperboloids.