Thermodynamics of Field Theories from Spinning Branes ∗

We discuss general spinning p-branes of string and M-theory and use their thermody-namics along with the correspondence between near-horizon brane solutions and field theories with 16 supercharges to describe the thermodynamic behavior of these theories in the presence of voltages under the R-symmetry. The thermodynamics is used to provide two pieces of evidence in favor of a smooth interpolation function between the free energy at weak and strong coupling of the field theory. (i) A computation of the boundaries of stability shows that for the D2, D3, D4, M2 and M5-branes the critical values of Ω/T in the two limits are remarkably close and (ii) The tree-level R 4 corrections to the spinning D3-brane generate a decrease in the free energy at strong coupling towards the weak coupling result. We also comment on the generalization to spinning brane bound states and their thermodynamics, which are relevant for non-commutative field theories.