Complex Kerr-AdS black holes

A bstract We revisit thermodynamics of five-dimensional AdS spacetime at finite temperature and rotation using the Euclidean path integral. It is generally believed that at low temperatures and finite rotation, the bulk saddle point that governs the thermodynamics describes a rotating gas of thermal radiation. Consequently, the dual gauge theory at low temperatures is in a confined thermal state. We demonstrate that this holographic expectation is at odds with the fact that, even at low temperatures, there exist saddles of the bulk path integral with real part of on-shell action smaller than that of the thermal rotating gas. The usual Kerr-AdS black holes but with complex parameters are examples of such saddles. Using mini-superspace ideas and steepest descent, we argue that these additional saddles do not actually feature in the low temperature partition function. This saves the original claim that rotating thermal gas is indeed the correct background for understanding the dual gauge theory at low temperatures. As a corollary, we also find that the unstable small rotating black hole does not contribute to the partition function at any temperature, even in a suppressed manner.