Phase Structure of Black Holes and Strings on Cylinders

TL;DR

This paper investigates the phase structure of black holes and strings on cylinders using a phase diagram, proving key properties of solutions and discussing implications for stability and transitions.

Contribution

It generalizes the metric ansatz for static neutral black objects on cylinders and analyzes the thermodynamics and solution multiplicity, providing new insights into their phase structure.

Findings

All solution branches obey the first law of thermodynamics.

Any solution has an infinite number of copies.

The paper discusses scenarios for Gregory-Laflamme instability.

Abstract

We use the (M,n) phase diagram recently introduced in hep-th/0309116 to investigate the phase structure of black holes and strings on cylinders. We first prove that any static neutral black object on a cylinder can be put into an ansatz for the metric originally proposed in hep-th/0204047, generalizing a result of Wiseman. Using the ansatz, we then show that all branches of solutions obey the first law of thermodynamics and that any solution has an infinite number of copies. The consequences of these two results are analyzed. Based on the new insights and the known branches of solutions, we finally present an extensive discussion of the possible scenarios for the Gregory-Laflamme instability and the black hole/string transition.