Fragile Black Holes

TL;DR

This paper explores the instability of AdS black holes with flat horizons under spacetime distortions, revealing their fragility in string theory and implications for the stability of dual field theories in extreme conditions.

Contribution

It demonstrates that distorted AdS black holes with flat horizons are inherently unstable in string theory, challenging assumptions about the robustness of dual field theories on curved backgrounds.

Findings

Distorted AdS black holes with flat horizons are always unstable in string theory.

Black hole fragility may influence the phase structure of quark matter at high curvature.

Implications for the stability of dual field theories in extreme spacetime conditions.

Abstract

The AdS/CFT correspondence may give a new way of understanding field theories in extreme conditions, as in the quark-gluon plasma phase of quark matter. The correspondence normally involves asymptotically AdS black holes with dual field theories which are defined on locally flat boundary spacetimes; the implicit assumption is that the distortions of spacetime which occur under extreme conditions do not affect the field theory in any unexpected way. However, AdS black holes are [to varying degrees] "fragile", in the sense that they become unstable to stringy effects when their event horizons are sufficiently distorted. This implies that field theories on curved backgrounds may likewise be unstable in a suitable sense. We investigate this phenomenon, focussing on the "fragility" of AdS black holes with flat event horizons. We find that, when they are distorted, these black holes are always unstable in string theory. This may have consequences for the detailed structure of the quark matter phase diagram at extreme values of the spacetime curvature.