Conformal quantum mechanics, holomorphic factorisation, and ultra-spinning black holes

A bstract We study a limit in which a relativistic CFT reduces to conformal quantum mechanics, and relate the partition functions of the two theories. When the initial CFT is holographic, our limit coincides with an ultra-spinning limit in the gravity dual. We therefore propose that ultra-spinning black holes are dual to an appropriate ensemble in finite-dimensional conformal quantum mechanics. The limit is studied in detail for SCFTs in four and six dimensions. These theories have a superconformal index which can be computed by gluing together two or more blocks. Applying our limit to the index effectively isolates a single such block. Our results therefore suggest that ultra-spinning black holes play the role of blocks in the gravitational dual of holomorphic factorisation.