Superstars and Giant Gravitons in M-Theory

Following hep–th/0109127, we show that a certain class of BPS naked singularities (superstars) found in compactifications of M–theory can be interpreted as being composed of giant gravitons. More specifically, we study superstars which are asymptotically AdS7 × S and AdS4 × S and show that these field configurations can be interpreted as being sourced by continuous distributions of spherical M2– and M5–branes, respectively, which carry internal momenta and have expanded on the spherical component of the space–time. E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]