The gravitational path integral for $ N=4$ BPS black holes from black hole microstate counting

Abstract

We use the exact degeneracy formula of single-centred $\frac14$ BPS dyonic black holes with unit torsion in 4D $N=4$ toroidally compactified heterotic string theory to improve on the existing formulation of the corresponding quantum entropy function obtained using supersymmetric localization. The result takes the form of a sum over Euclidean backgrounds including orbifolds of the Euclidean $AdS_2 \times S^2$ attractor geometry. Using an $N=2$ formalism, we determine the explicit form of the Abelian gauge potentials supporting these backgrounds. We further show how a rewriting of the degeneracy formula is amenable, at a semi-classical level, to a gravitational interpretation involving 2D Euclidean wormholes. This alternative picture is useful to elucidate different aspects of the gravitational path integral capturing the microstate degeneracies. We also comment on the relation between the associated 1D holographic models.