Criticality of central charges for Gauss-Bonnet black holes

Abstract

Employing extended phase space formalism, we study critical phenomenon of A-charge and C-charge for holographic theories dual to Gauss-Bonnet black holes. We find a universal critical Gauss-Bonnet coupling, giving rise to a universal ratio between the two central charges at the critical point. This leads to a new intepretation for critical behavior of Gauss-Bonnet black holes in terms of the boundary degrees of freedoms, although the solutions are electrically neutral. Another novel feature is for either of the central charges, the transition temperature is beyond the critical point but is upper bounded by causality of the boundary theories.