Motivated by the recent interest in conformal and duality invariant nonlinear electrodynamics, we study the non-Abelian extension of ModMax electrodynamics. The theory is parameterized by a single dimensionless constant, and it is continuously connected to Yang-Mills theory in its vanishing limit. We show that the theory admits (anti-)self-dual instantons, despite the additional nonlinearities that characterize the non-Abelian ModMax theory. For SU(2), we construct the generalization of the BPST instanton and extend this solution to Euclidean de Sitter and anti-de Sitter backgrounds. In the latter case, the Chern-Pontryagin index depends on the instanton size since the configuration is not a pure gauge at infinity; a property already pointed out in Yang-Mills on negative-curvature backgrounds by Callan and Wilczek. We compute the contribution of the latter to the spectrum of the Dirac operator at the boundary, which is crucial for determining the non-local contributions to the Dirac index. Then, we show that the ansatz constructed with 't Hooft symbols accommodates multi-instantons in the non-Abelian ModMax theory. The system of (anti-)self-dual equations reduces to a single nonlinear equation, which can be perturbatively solved order by order in the parameter that controls the nonlinearity. Following such a strategy, we provide a formal solution for the N-instanton configuration to first order in the expansion. Then, we couple non-Abelian ModMax theory to gravity with a conformally coupled scalar field and construct new gravitating solutions that describe Euclidean wormholes and other smooth configurations with secondary hair.

We study the α' corrections to self-dual gravitational instantons in the context of the four-dimensional Cano–Ruipérez action, which can be obtained by the compactification of the Bergshoeff–de Roo heterotic string effective action on 𝕋^6 followed by a truncation and a field redefinition. We show that the metric of spaces of self-dual curvature does not receive any corrections, but their (initially trivial) dilaton and axion fields do, owing to their couplings to Gauss–Bonnet and Pontrjagin densities. We find the generic form of the corrections of the dilaton and axion fields for the Gibbons–Hawking multi-instanton solutions and their explicit form for the particular cases of the Euclidean Taub–NUT and Eguchi–Hanson spaces. We construct the boundary terms required to define a well-posed Dirichlet variational principle in the Euclidean Cano–Ruipérez theory, including the contributions associated with the Gauss–Bonnet and Pontrjagin terms. The boundary terms are normalized for asymptotically-locally-Euclidean solutions, and we evaluate with them the Euclidean action of the α'-corrected Eguchi–Hanson instanton showing that the total action receives no corrections to first order in α'. We also show that, at zeroth order in α', one can construct Euclidean solutions similar to the string theory D-instanton with non-trivial dilaton and axion on the background of a self-dual purely gravitational instanton which remains unmodified. We also compute the α' corrections to these solutions.

In this work, we study nonconformally Ricci-flat gravitational instantons in four-dimensional Conformal Gravity, both in vacuum and in the presence of nonlinear conformal matter. First, the one-parameter extension of the Kerr-NUT-AdS metric is analyzed. We obtain their conserved charges by using the Noether-Wald formalism. It turns out that they receive corrections from the linear modes present in Conformal Gravity, which are properly identified. Then, we perform the analytic continuation into the Euclidean section and find the curve in parameter space along which this solution becomes regular and globally (anti)self-dual. Using the Dunajski-Tod theorem, we show that the self-dual metric is not conformally Ricci-flat. Then, the backreaction of nonlinear conformal matter is considered. In particular, we find new gravitational instantons in the presence of conformally coupled scalar fields and ModMax electrodynamics. We compute the partition function and conserved charges, which turn out to be finite by virtue of the conformal invariance of the theory. As a byproduct, we also obtain a generalization of the Riegert metric dressed with nonlinear conformal matter as a particular limit of these instantons. For all cases, we analyze the global properties, the curve in parameter space where the solutions are (anti)-self-dual, and the on-shell Euclidean action, among other features.

In higher-dimensional Einstein-AdS gravity, it is well known that planar and static anti-de Sitter black holes can be endowed with multiple rotation parameters via a large-gauge transformation. However, a similar prescription fails when multiple NUT parameters are added, thereby obstructing the study of holographic properties with more than one NUT charge. To pave the way towards this direction, we construct explicit planar AdS spacetimes having multiple NUT parameters in two simple ways that allow one to circumvent the strong restrictions imposed by the vacuum field equations. First, motivated by momentum relaxation holographic models, we construct multi-NUT spaces in AdS with flat horizons by adding free scalar fields possessing an axionic profile. In our second approach, we build similar configurations in Einstein gravity with quadratic-curvature corrections. As a byproduct, we end by presenting planar versions of the Kaluza-Klein monopole in AdS with different magnetic charges.

The asymptotic analysis for the metric of a generic solution of Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet AdS theory is provided by solving the field equations in the Fefferman-Graham frame. Using standard holographic renormalization, the counterterms that render the action finite are found up to seven spacetime dimensions. In the case of 6D, an equivalent formulation that permits a fully covariant determination of the counterterms is introduced, based on the finiteness of conformal invariants. It is shown that both schemes end up in the same holographic stress-energy tensor. Physical properties of six-dimensional topological Boulware-Deser black holes in Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet-AdS_6 gravity, whose boundary has nontrivial conformal features, are worked out in detail. Employing both renormalization prescriptions, finite asymptotic charges are found, and the correct black hole thermodynamics is recovered.

Euclidean AdS wormholes provide a natural setup for studying the AdS/CFT correspondence with multiple boundaries. However, from a bottom-up perspective, they cannot be embedded in the four-dimensional Einstein-AdS-Maxwell theory if these boundaries have positive curvature. Nevertheless, Maldacena and Maoz showed that this obstruction could be circumvented by introducing merons in the four-dimensional Einstein-AdS-Yang-Mills theory. In this work, we show that Euclidean-AdS wormholes also exist in the four-dimensional Einstein-AdS-Skyrme theory, whose matter sector possesses a nontrivial baryonic charge. We compute its free energy and show that it does not depend on the integration constants whatsoever, resembling topological solitons. Additionally, we obtain its holographic stress tensor and show that it vanishes, allowing us to interpret this configuration as a holographic Bogomol'nyi-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS) state. Other topologically nontrivial ground states in Einstein-Skyrme theory are found, such as gravitational instantons, representing the homotopically inequivalent vacua of the theory. We find that they develop Hawking-Page phase transitions above a critical temperature. Some of these solutions are periodic in Euclidean time, representing the gravitational analog of calorons in Yang-Mills theory.

We consider Lovelock gravity in arbitrary, even dimensions. We find a large class of new gravitational instantons by considering extended nontrivial circle bundles over Kähler manifolds. Concretely, we generalize the Page-Pope metric in the presence of higher-curvature corrections of the Lovelock class. A subset of these spaces admits analytic continuation into the Lorentzian sector, producing new stationary solutions in Lovelock gravity. The geometries are fully determined by a single algebraic equation. We also obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for Lovelock-constant Kähler manifolds to exist in Lovelock gravity. Finally, we find a wide class of Lovelock-Maxwell solutions beyond staticity, allowing us to obtain the electrovacuum extension of these instantons.

In this work, we study (anti-)self duality conditions in unconventional conformal supersymmetry. We focus on a theory constructed in a Townsend-MacDowell-Mansouri form for an SU(2,2|N) gauge connection with matter fields in the adjoint representation. We found bosonic solutions that correspond to analytic gravitational instantons with nontrivial torsion. These configurations can be regarded as the torsional generalization of the Taub-NUT/Bolt-AdS and Eguchi-Hanson metric and they are (anti-)self-dual with respect to a generalized dual operator. We explore their global properties and show that they saturate a BPS bound.

We study the renormalization of a particular sector of Horndeski theory. In particular, we focus on the nonminimal coupling of a scalar field to the Gauss-Bonnet term and its kinetic coupling to the Einstein tensor. Adopting a power expansion on the scalar function that couples the Gauss-Bonnet term, we find specific conditions on their coefficients such that the action and charges are finite. To accomplish the latter, we add a finite set of intrinsic boundary terms. The contribution of the nonminimal coupling generates an effective scalar mass, allowing us to recover a modified Breitenlohner-Freedman bound. Furthermore, we compute the holographic 1-point functions and Ward identities associated with the scalar field and the metric. We constrain the parameter space of the theory by taking into account the preservation of scaling symmetry at the boundary.

We study self-gravitating solutions of 3-dimensional massive gravity coupled to Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons gauge theory. Among these, there is a family of asymptotically Warped-Anti de Sitter black holes that come to generalize previous solutions found in the literature and studied in the context of WAdS_3/CFT_2. We also present self-gravitating solutions to the 3-dimensional Einstein-Yang-Mills theory, as well as other self-gravitating solutions in the presence of higher-curvature terms.

We study the (anti-)self-duality conditions under which the electric and magnetic parts of the conserved charges of the dyonic Kerr-Newman-NUT-AdS solution become equivalent. Within a holographic framework, the stress tensor and the boundary Cotton tensor are computed from the electric/magnetic content of the Weyl tensor. The holographic stress tensor/Cotton tensor duality is recovered along the (anti-)self-dual curve in parameter space. We show that the latter not only implies a duality relation for the mass but also for the angular momentum. The partition function is computed to first order in the saddle-point approximation and a BPS bound is obtained. The ground state of the theory is enlarged to all the (anti-)self-dual configurations when the SO(4) and U(1) Pontryagin densities are introduced. We demonstrate this at the level of the action and variations thereof.

We present a novel asymptotically anti-de Sitter black hole solution with conformally-coupled scalar fields in the first-order formalism of gravity in four dimensions. To do so, we consider a one-parameter extension of conformal transformations by exploiting the fact that the tetrad and spin connection are regarded as independent fields. We solve the field equations analytically and obtain a static black hole solution with nontrivial torsion sourced by the conformal coupling between the scalar field and geometry. The presence of torsion renders the scalar field everywhere regular, while the curvature and torsion singularities coalesce into the origin. We show that this configuration is continuously connected to previously reported solutions in the limit of vanishing torsion and analyze its main properties, focusing on the consequences of the torsional singularity.

We study the axial anomaly of Dirac spinors on gravitational instanton backgrounds in the context of nonlinear electrodynamics. In order to do so, we consider Einstein gravity minimally coupled to a recently proposed conformal electrodynamics that enjoys duality transformation invariance. These symmetries allow us to generalize the Eguchi-Hanson configuration while preserving its geometry. We then compute the Dirac index of the nonlinearly charged Eguchi-Hanson and Taub-NUT configurations. We find that there is an excess of positive chiral Dirac fermions over the negative ones which triggers the anomaly.

We construct the first analytic examples of self-gravitating anisotropic merons in the Einstein-Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons theory in three dimensions. The gauge field configurations have different meronic parameters along the three Maurer-Cartan 1-forms and they are topologically nontrivial as the Chern-Simons invariant is nonzero. The corresponding backreacted metric is conformally a squashed three-sphere. The amount of squashing is related to the degree of anisotropy of the gauge field configurations that we compute explicitly in different limits of the squashing parameter. Moreover, the spectrum of the Dirac operator on this background is obtained explicitly for spin-1/2 spinors in the fundamental representation of SU(2), and the genuine non-Abelian contributions to the spectrum are identified. The physical consequences of these results are discussed.

We study a conformally coupled scalar-tensor theory with a quartic potential possessing local conformal symmetry up to a boundary term. We show that requiring the restoration of the full local conformal symmetry fixes the counterterms that render the on-shell action finite. The building block of the resulting action is a conformally covariant tensor which is constructed out of the metric and the scalar field and it has the same conformal weight as the Weyl tensor. This allows us to obtain the counterterms for the scalar-tensor sector in a closed form. The finiteness of the conformally complete version of the action is suggestive on the validity of the Conformal Renormalization prescription. We extend this theory by adding the Conformal Gravity action and also the Einstein-AdS action written in McDowell-Mansouri form. Even though the latter breaks the conformal symmetry, we find that the action is still renormalized provided a suitable falloff of the scalar field when considering asymptotically locally anti-de Sitter solutions. Black hole solutions in these theories are studied, for which the Hawking temperature and the partition function to first order in the saddle-point approximation are calculated, providing a concrete example of this renormalization scheme.

We review an algorithm, in the context of gauge and gravity theories described by differential forms, to read off the symmetries of a physical system out of its action, which was originally proposed in [C. Corral and Y. Bonder, Symmetry algebra in gauge theories of gravity, Class. Quantum Grav. 36 (2019) 045002]. In particular, we study the interplay between gauge symmetries and a gauge-covariant version of diffeomorphisms dubbed local translations. We focus on the role of boundary terms and conserved charges that were not discussed in the original proposal. We provide a review of the formalism and analyze several examples of classical theories, including gauge theories coupled to matter fields in flat space and gravitational theories in different dimensions.

We present a streamlined proof that any Einstein-AdS space is a solution of the Lu, Pang and Pope conformal gravity theory in six dimensions. The reduction of conformal gravity into Einstein theory manifestly shows that the action of the latter can be written as the Einstein-Hilbert term plus the Euler topological density and an additional contribution that depends on the Laplacian of the bulk Weyl tensor squared. The prescription for obtaining this form of the action by embedding the Einstein theory into a Weyl-invariant purely metric theory, was dubbed Conformal Renormalization and its resulting action was shown to be equivalent to the one obtained by holographic renormalization. As a non-trivial application of the method, we compute the Noether-Wald charges and thermodynamic quantities for topological black hole solutions with generic transverse section in Einstein-AdS_6 theory.

We present a three-parameter family of analytic black-hole solutions in the bosonic sector of a four-dimensional supersymmetric model with matter fields in the adjoint representation. The solutions are endowed with a curvature and torsional singularities which are both surrounded by an event horizon. They are asymptotically Lorentz flat, representing the torsional generalization of the Riegert black hole in conformal gravity. We compute the partition function to first order in the saddle-point approximation which turns out to be finite without any reference to boundary counterterms. We find a non-maximmally symmetric thermalized ground state, whose existence is relevant when studying Hawking-Page phase transitions. Finally, we discuss future directions regarding its extended phase space.

We study conserved charges and thermodynamics of analytic rotating anti-de Sitter black holes with extended horizon topology -- also known as black strings -- in dynamical Chern-Simons modified gravity. The solution is supported by a scalar field with an axionic profile that depends linearly on the coordinate that spans the string. We compute conserved charges by making use of the renormalized boundary stress-energy tensor. Then, by adopting the Noether-Wald formalism, we compute the black string entropy and obtain its area law. Indeed, the reduced Euclidean Hamiltonian approach shows that these methods yield a consistent first law of thermodynamics. Additionally, we derive a Smarr formula using a radial conservation law associated to the scale invariance of the reduced action and obtain a Cardy formula for the black string. A first-order phase transition takes place at a critical temperature between the ground state and the black string, above which the black string is the thermodynamically favored configuration.

We present novel regular Euclidean solutions to General Relativity in presence of Maxwell and conformally coupled scalar fields. In particular, we consider metrics of the Eguchi-Hanson and Taub-NUT families to solve the field equations analytically. The solutions have nontrivial topology labeled by the Hirzebruch signature and Euler characteristic that we compute explicitly. We find that, although the solutions are locally inequivalent with the original (anti-)self-dual Eguchi-Hanson metric, their asymptotically locally Euclidean limit leads to the same global properties. We revisit the Taub-NUT solution previously found in the literature, analyze their nuts and bolts structure, and obtain the renormalized Euclidean on-shell action as well as their topological invariants. Additionally, we discuss how the solutions get modified in presence of higher-curvature corrections that respect conformal invariance. In the conformally invariant case, we obtain novel Eguchi-Hanson and Taub-NUT solutions and demonstrate that both Euclidean on-shell action and Noether-Wald charges are finite without any reference to intrinsic boundary counterterms.