Cosmic censorship in a (dual) collider

TL;DR

This paper explores cosmic censorship in anti-de Sitter space through holographic models, examining how singularities and horizon behaviors relate to boundary fluid dynamics and phase transitions.

Contribution

It analyzes the conditions under which singularities are hidden or revealed in holographic models with supersymmetric truncations, including effects of finite-N and finite-coupling.

Findings

Curvature invariants at horizons can grow unbounded in classical gravity.

Phase transitions can prevent singularity exposure by leading to regular geometries.

Boundary hydrodynamics can be continued beyond horizon growth with known equations of state.

Abstract

We investigate cosmic censorship in anti-de Sitter space in holographic models in which the ground state is described by a good singularity. These include supersymmetric truncations of string/M-theory, for which a positive-energy theorem holds. At the boundary, our solutions describe a boost-invariant fluid in which the temperature decreases monotonically with time. On the gravity side, they correspond to black-brane spacetimes with a receding horizon. In classical gravity, curvature invariants at the horizon grow without bound. In the full theory this regime may or may not be reached. In some cases it is avoided by a phase transition to a regular geometry. In others it is reached but the boundary hydrodynamic evolution can be continued, provided the equation of state at parametrically small energies is known. Both cases require the inclusion of finite-$N$ or finite-coupling effects.