We consider “bubbles of nothing” constructed by analytically continuing black hole solutions in Anti-de Sitter space. These provide interesting examples of smooth time-dependent backgrounds which can be studied through the AdS/CFT correspondence. Our examples include bubbles constructed from Schwarzschild-AdS, Kerr-AdS and Reissner-Nordstrom AdS. The Schwarzschild bubble is dual to Yang-Mills t...

It is shown how the results of Deser and Levin on the response of accelerated detectors in anti-de Sitter space can be understood from the same general perspective as other thermality results in spacetimes with bifurcate Killing horizons. A detector with linear acceleration a in the Minkowski vacuum sees a thermal bath at the temperature TU = a/2π [1], while an inertial detector in de Sitter (d...

We analyze the pattern of fields in d + 1 dimensional anti-de Sitter space in terms of those in d dimensional anti-de Sitter space. The procedure, which is neither dimensional reduction nor dimensional compactification, is called dimensional degression. The analysis is performed group-theoretically for all totally symmetric bosonic and fermionic representations of the anti-de Sitter algebra. Th...

We argue that stable, maximally symmetric compactifications of string theory to 1+1 dimensions are in conflict with holography. In particular, the finite horizon entropies of the Rindler wedge in 1+1 dimensional Minkowski and anti de Sitter space, and of the de Sitter horizon in any dimension, are inconsistent with the symmetries of these spaces. The argument parallels one made recently by the ...

We use minimal (or CMC) surfaces to describe 3-dimensional hyperbolic, anti-de Sitter, de Sitter or Minkowski manifolds. We consider whether these manifolds admit “nice” foliations and explicit metrics, and whether the space of these metrics has a simple description in terms of Teichmüller theory. In the hyperbolic settings both questions have positive answers for a certain subset of the quasi-...

Two-dimensional dilaton gravity on Anti-de Sitter space is shown to be dual to an open string. Neumann and Dirichlet boundary conditions for the string lead to two different realizations of the Anti-de Sitter/Conformal Field Theory correspondence. In particular, in the Dirichlet case the thermodynamical entropy of two-dimensional black holes can be exactly reproduced by counting the string stat...

We present a detailed discussion of the asymptotic symmetries of Anti-de Sitter space in two dimensions and their relationship with the conformal group in one dimension. We use this relationship to give a microscopical derivation of the entropy of 2d black holes that have asymptotically Anti-de Sitter behaviour. The implications of our results for the conjectured AdS2 /CFT1 duality are also dis...

It now seems probable that the version of de Sitter spacetime which may ultimately emerge from string theory will not be the familiar, maximally symmetric version, since it is likely to be truncated in some way by metastability or otherwise reduced in symmetry so that its isometry group has finite-dimensional representations. We argue that the best way to gain some control over this situation i...

A conformal field theory on the boundary of three-dimensional asymptotic anti-de Sitter spaces which appear as near horizon geometry of D-brane bound states is discussed. It is shown that partition functions of gravitational instantons appear as high and low temperature limits of the partition function of the conformal field theory. The result reproduces phase transition between the anti-de Sit...

We reformulate free equations of motion for massive spin 0 and spin 1/2 matter fields in 2+1 dimensional anti-de Sitter space in the form of some covariant constantness conditions. The infinite-dimensional representation of the anti-de Sitter algebra underlying this formulation is shown to admit a natural realization in terms of the algebra of deformed oscillators with a deformation parameter r...