Tachyon Condensation and Black Strings

TL;DR

This paper explores how closed string tachyon condensation can cause topology-changing transitions from black strings to bubbles of nothing, offering new insights into black hole evaporation and string theory transitions.

Contribution

It demonstrates that tachyon condensation can lead to topology change from black strings to bubbles of nothing, extending understanding of black hole endpoints in string theory.

Findings

Black string to bubble of nothing transition via tachyon condensation

Transition occurs when horizon curvature is much smaller than string scale

Application to AdS black holes and solitons

Abstract

We show that under certain conditions, closed string tachyon condensation produces a topology changing transition from black strings to Kaluza-Klein "bubbles of nothing." This can occur when the curvature at the horizon is much smaller than the string scale, so the black string is far from the correspondence point when it would make a transition to an excited fundamental string. This provides a dramatic new endpoint to Hawking evaporation. A similar transition occurs for black p-branes, and can be viewed as a nonextremal version of a geometric transition. Applications to AdS black holes and the AdS soliton are also discussed.