Supersymmetric Conical Defects: Towards a string theoretic description of black hole formation

Conical defects, or point particles, in $AdS_3$ are one of the simplest non-trivial gravitating systems, and are particularly interesting because black holes can form from their collision. We embed the BPS conical defects of three dimensions into the N=4b supergravity in six dimensions, which arises from IIB string theory compactified on K3. The required Kaluza-Klein reduction of the six dimensional theory on a sphere is analyzed in detail, including the relation to the Chern-Simons supergravities in three dimensions. We show that the six dimensional spaces obtained by embedding the 3d conical defects arise in the near-horizon limit of rotating black strings. Various properties of these solutions are analyzed and we propose a representation of our defects in the CFT dual to asymptotically $AdS_3 x S^3$ spaces. Our work is intended as a first step towards analyzing colliding defects that form black holes.