Multicritical Phase Transitions in Lovelock AdS Black Holes

TL;DR

This paper explores complex phase transition behaviors, including quadruple and quintuple points, in Lovelock AdS black holes, revealing new multi-critical phenomena in higher-order gravity theories.

Contribution

It provides explicit examples of multi-critical points in Lovelock black holes, including uncharged cases, expanding understanding of black hole thermodynamics.

Findings

Identification of quadruple point in 10D fourth-order Lovelock gravity

Discovery of quintuple point in 14D sixth-order Lovelock gravity

Multi-criticality between black holes and thermal radiation

Abstract

We demonstrate that black holes in order $N\ge 4$ Lovelock gravity can exhibit multicritical phase behaviour. We show an explicit example of a quadruple point in $d=10$ fourth-order Lovelock gravity and a quintuple point in $d=14$ sixth-order Lovelock gravity. We also demonstrate that multi-criticality can be realized for uncharged, non-rotating black holes by highlighting a new type of multi-critical point between black holes and thermal radiation. We discuss the methodology used and make comparisons to other black hole multi-critical points in terms of the Gibbs phase rule.