Black Tsunamis and Naked Singularities in AdS

TL;DR

This paper explores the dynamics of black strings in AdS space, revealing complex behaviors like black tsunamis and naked singularities, and their holographic duals involving heat flow and stress-energy bursts.

Contribution

It introduces an effective large D theory to analyze black string instabilities and uncovers new dynamical phenomena and their holographic implications.

Findings

Identification of black tsunami phenomena in AdS

Observation of horizon pinch-off leading to naked singularities

Modeling of stress-energy tensor bursts at the boundary

Abstract

We study the evolution of the Gregory-Laflamme instability for black strings in global AdS spacetime, and investigate the CFT dual of the formation of a bulk naked singularity. Using an effective theory in the large D limit, we uncover a rich variety of dynamical behaviour, depending on the thickness of the string and on initial perturbations. These include: large inflows of horizon generators from the asymptotic boundary (a `black tsunami'); a pinch-off of the horizon that likely reveals a naked singularity; and competition between these two behaviours, such as a nakedly singular pinch-off that subsequently gets covered by a black tsunami. The holographic dual describes different patterns of heat flow due to the Hawking radiation of two black holes placed at the antipodes of a spherical universe. We also present a model that describes, in any D, the burst in the holographic stress-energy tensor when the signal from a bulk self-similar naked singularity reaches the boundary. The model shows that the shear components of the boundary stress diverge in finite time, while the energy density and pressures from the burst vanish.