Metastability in Anti de Sitter Space

TL;DR

This paper explores the conceptual and geometric aspects of metastable Anti-de Sitter (AdS) vacua decay, analyzing their unique features and implications for string theory, dual field theories, and eternal inflation.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of decay geometries in metastable AdS vacua and discusses their implications for string landscape and dual field theories.

Findings

Decay geometry of metastable AdS vacua is distinct from flat or dS cases.

Semiclassical gravity is used to analyze decay processes.

Implications for dual field theories and eternal inflation are discussed.

Abstract

I discuss conceptual issues associated with the presence of metastable AdS vacua in the string landscape. The geometry of the decay from one AdS to another is presented in detail, and various subtleties that are not present for flat or dS vacua are demonstrated and analyzed. I use mostly semiclassical gravity, but I will consider the implications for recent attempts to construct field theory duals of metastable AdS vacua and also possible relevance to the study of eternal inflation.