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Nothing really matters

Dibitetto, Giuseppe; Petri, Nicolo; Schillo, Marjorie

JOURNAL OF HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS
2020
VL / - BP / - EP /
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.

AccesS level

Gold DOAJ, Green published

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