Stability of AdS in Einstein Gauss Bonnet Gravity

Abstract

Recently it has been argued that in Einstein gravity Anti-de Sitter spacetime is unstable against the formation of black holes for a large class of arbitrarily small perturbations. We examine the effects of including a Gauss-Bonnet term. In five dimensions, spherically symmetric Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity has two key features: Choptuik scaling exhibits a radius gap, and the mass function goes to a finite value as the horizon radius vanishes. These suggest that black holes will not form dynamically if the total mass/energy content of the spacetime is too small, thereby restoring the stability of AdS spacetime in this context. We support this claim with numerical simulations and uncover a rich structure in horizon radii and formation times as a function of perturbation amplitude.

5 pages, 6 figures, final version to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett. (in print)

References in corpus (4)

• Generalized Misner-Sharp quasi-local mass in Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity
• Dynamical black holes with symmetry in Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity
• What drives AdS unstable?
• The 5-D Choptuik critical exponent and holography

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• Universality of non-equilibrium dynamics of CFTs from holography
• Nonlinear Dynamics in the Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity
• Gravitational systems in asymptotically anti-de Sitter space-times
• Black Holes and Wormholes in Higher-Curvature Corrected Theories of Gravity
• Testing Higher Derivative Gravity Through Tunnelling