English

Counter-examples to the correlated stability conjecture

High Energy Physics - Theory 2014-11-18 v2

Abstract

We demonstrate explicit counter-examples to the Correlated Stability Conjecture (CSC), which claims that the horizon of a black brane is unstable precisely if that horizon has a thermodynamic instability, meaning that its matrix of susceptibilities has a negative eigenvalue. These examples involve phase transitions near the horizon. Ways to restrict or revise the CSC are suggested. One of our examples shows that N=1* gauge theory has a second order chiral symmetry breaking phase transition at a temperature well above the confinement scale.

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/0508220,
  title  = {Counter-examples to the correlated stability conjecture},
  author = {Joshua J. Friess and Steven S. Gubser and Indrajit Mitra},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/0508220},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

18 pages, 5 figures. v2: minor improvements, reference added

R2 v1 2026-07-22T15:31:48.905Z