Holography of AdS vacuum bubbles

TL;DR

This paper explores the holographic duality of AdS vacuum decay via tunneling, proposing a correspondence with Fubini instantons in unstable CFTs, and discusses how boundary stabilization can resolve big crunch singularities.

Contribution

It introduces a holographic dual description of AdS vacuum bubbles using Fubini instantons and analyzes the boundary implications of bulk crunches, proposing stabilization mechanisms.

Findings

Holographic dual of AdS vacuum decay via Fubini instantons.

Boundary analysis reveals infinite energy differences and ill-defined bulk setups.

Stabilizing the CFT can prevent big crunches by forming black hole horizons.

Abstract

We consider the fate of AdS vacua connected by tunneling events. A precise holographic dual of thin-walled Coleman--de Luccia bounces is proposed in terms of Fubini instantons in an unstable CFT. This proposal is backed by several qualitative and quantitative checks, including the precise calculation of the instanton action appearing in evaluating the decay rate. Big crunches manifest themselves as time dependent processes which reach the boundary of field space in a finite time. The infinite energy difference involved is identified on the boundary and highlights the ill-defined nature of the bulk setup. We propose a qualitative scenario in which the crunch is resolved by stabilizing the CFT, so that all attempts at crunching always end up shielded from the boundary by the formation of black hole horizons. In all these well defined bulk processes the configurations have the same asymptotics and are finite energy excitations.