Black hole dynamics from thermodynamics in Anti-de Sitter space

Recent studies indicate that the configurational entropy is an useful tool to investigate the stability and (or) the relative dominance of states for diverse physical systems. Recent examples comprise the connection between the variation of this quantity and the relative fraction of light mesons and glueballs observed in hadronic processes. Here we develop a technique for defining a configurational entropy for an AdS-Schwarzschild black hole. The achieved result corroborates ...

We study non-linearly the gravitational instabilities of Reissner-Nordstrom-de Sitter and Gauss-Bonnet-de Sitter black holes by using the large $D$ expansion method. In both cases, the thresholds of the instability are found to be consistent with the linear analysis, and on the thresholds the evolutions of the black holes under perturbations settle down to stationary lumpy solutions. However, the solutions in unstable region are highly time-dependent, and resemble the fully l...

We present fully dynamical solutions to Einstein-scalar theory in asymptotically Anti-de-Sitter spacetime with a scalar potential containing particularly rich physics. Depending on one parameter in the potential we find an especially interesting regime, which exhibits a thermodynamically stable, but dynamically unstable black brane, even at zero momentum. We show this using the non-linear dynamics, and give a clear interpretation in terms of the spectrum of linearized perturb...

We study the linear stability of asymptotically anti-de Sitter black holes in general relativity in spacetime dimension $d\ge4$. Our approach is an adaptation of the general framework of Hollands and Wald, which gives a stability criterion in terms of the sign of the canonical energy, $\mathcal{E}$. The general framework was originally formulated for static or stationary and axisymmetric black holes in the asymptotically flat case, and the stability analysis for that case app...

In this review, we retrace the recent progress in the anti-de Sitter (AdS) instability problem. By instability we mean that for large classes of initial data, any perturbation of AdS space-time, however small, leads to the formation of a black hole. Since the seminal work of Bizo\'n and Rostworowski in 2011, many different kinds of numerical experiments were performed in asymptotically AdS space-times, unveiling a very intricate structure of the instability. In particular, ma...

A thermodynamical description for the quasi-static collapse of radiating, self-gravitating spherical shells of matter in anti-de Sitter space-time is obtained. It is shown that the specific heat at constant area and other thermodynamical quantities may diverge before a black hole has eventually formed. This suggests the possibility of a phase transition occurring along the collapse process. The differences with respect to the asymptotically flat case are also highlighted.

Recently a number of papers have claimed that the horizon area - and thus the entropy - of near extremal black holes in anti-de Sitter spacetimes can be reduced by dropping particles into them. In this note we point out that this is a consequence of an underlying assumption that the energy of an infalling particle changes only the internal energy of the black hole, whereas a more physical assumption would be that it changes the enthalpy (mass). In fact, under the latter choic...

We revisit the classical thermodynamic stability of the standard black hole solutions by implementing the intrinsic necessary and sufficient conditions for stable global and local thermodynamic equilibrium. The criteria for such equilibria are quite generic and well-established in classical thermodynamics, but they have not been fully utilized in black hole physics. We show how weaker or incomplete conditions could lead to misleading or incorrect results for the thermodynamic...

We prove that sphaleron black holes in ${\mathfrak {su}}(2)$ Einstein-Yang-Mills-Higgs theory with a Higgs doublet in four-dimensional, asymptotically anti-de Sitter space-time are unstable.

We exhibit a tachyonic mode in a linearized analysis of perturbations of large anti-de Sitter Reissner-Nordstrom black holes in four dimensions. In the large black hole limit, and up to a 0.7% discrepancy which is probably round-off error in the numerical analysis, the tachyon appears precisely when the black hole becomes thermodynamically unstable.