Nothing really matters
High Energy Physics - Theory
2020-08-26 v1
Abstract
We study non-perturbative instabilities of AdS spacetime in General Relativity with a cosmological constant in arbitrary dimensions. In this simple setup we explicitly construct a class of gravitational instantons generalizing Witten's bubble of nothing. We calculate the corresponding Euclidean action and show that its change is finite. The expansion of these bubbles is described by a lower-dimensional de Sitter geometry within a non-compact foliation of the background spacetime. Moreover we discuss the existence of covariantly constant spinors as a possible topological obstruction for such decays to occur. This mechanism is further connected to the stability of supersymmetric vacua in string theory.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2002.01764,
title = {Nothing really matters},
author = {Giuseppe Dibitetto and Nicolò Petri and Marjorie Schillo},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2002.01764},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
22 pages, 2 appendices