English

New stability results for Einstein scalar gravity

High Energy Physics - Theory 2014-11-21 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We consider asymptotically anti de Sitter gravity coupled to a scalar field with mass slightly above the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound. This theory admits a large class of consistent boundary conditions characterized by an arbitrary function WW. An important open question is to determine which WW admit stable ground states. It has previously been shown that the total energy is bounded from below if WW is bounded from below and the bulk scalar potential V(ϕ)V(\phi) admits a suitable superpotential. We extend this result and show that the energy remains bounded even in some cases where WW can become arbitrarily negative. As one application, this leads to the possibility that in gauge/gravity duality, one can add a double trace operator with negative coefficient to the dual field theory and still have a stable vacuum.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1006.2387,
  title  = {New stability results for Einstein scalar gravity},
  author = {Thomas Faulkner and Gary T. Horowitz and Matthew M. Roberts},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1006.2387},
  year   = {2014}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T15:35:13.963Z