It can be expected that the respective endpoints of the Gregory-Laflamme black brane instability and the Rayleigh-Plateau membrane instability are related because the bifurcation diagrams of the black hole-black string system and the liquid drop-liquid bridge system display many similarities. In this paper, we investigate the non-linear dynamics of the Rayleigh-Plateau instability in a range of dimensions, including the critical dimension at which the phase structure changes. We show that near the critical dimension and above, depending on a parameter in initial conditions an unstable cylinder will either pinch off or converge to an equilibrium state. The equilibrium state is apparently non-uniform but has a constant mean curvature everywhere. The results suggest that in the gravity side, near the critical dimension and above, the final state of an unstable black string (which is not too long) is a non-uniform black string. The equation of motion adopted to describe the dynamics is the surface diffusion equation, which was originally proposed to describe a grooving process of heated metal surfaces. An interesting correspondence between the diffusion dynamics and black hole (thermo)dynamics is discussed.
I give a brief review of the Gregory-Laflamme instability as originally found for a 5-dimensional black string. This is a chapter of the book "Black Holes in Higher Dimensions" to be published by Cambridge University Press (editor: G. Horowitz)
We study the Gregory-Laflamme instability of a 5-dimensional slowly rotating black string in which the 4-dimensional section is described by the Kerr black hole. We treat the rotation in a perturbative way introducing a small parameter for the rotation. It is found that rotation makes the Gregory-Laflamme instability stronger. Both the critical wavelength at the onset of instability and the growth time-scale are found to decrease as the rotation increases.
The minimal geometric deformation (MGD), associated with the 4D Schwarzschild solution of the Einstein equations, is shown to be a solution of the pure 4D Ricci quadratic gravity theory, whose linear perturbations are then implemented by the Gregory-Laflamme eigentensors of the Lichnerowicz operator. The stability of MGD black strings is hence studied, through the correspondence between their Lichnerowicz eigenmodes and the ones associated with the 4D MGD solutions. Its is shown that there exists a critical mass driving the MGD black strings stability, above which the MGD black string is precl…
We find the Gregory-Laflamme $s$-mode instability of the non-rotating BTZ black hole in new massive gravity. This instability shows that the BTZ black hole could not exist as a stable static solution to the new massive gravity. For non-rotating BTZ black string in four dimensions, however, it is demonstrated that the BTZ black string can be stable against the metric perturbation.
In this paper we consider black p-branes on square torus. We find an indication of a cascade of Gregory-Laflamme transitions between black p-brane and (p-1)-brane. Through AdS/CFT correspondence, these transitions are related to the breakdown of the U(1) symmetry in super Yang-Mills on torus. We argue a relationship between the cascade and recent Monte-Carlo data.
We take into account higher derivative R4 corrections in M-theory and construct quantum black hole and black string solutions in 11 dimensions up to the next leading order. The quantum black string is stretching along the 11th direction and the Gregory-Laflamme instability is examined at the quantum level. Thermodynamics of the boosted quantum black hole and black string are also discussed. Especially we take the near horizon limit of the quantum black string and investigate its instability quantitatively.
We study the Gregory-Laflamme instability of 5D compactified, electrically charged black strings. We consider static, linear perturbations of these solutions and derive master equation for these perturbations. Using numerical analysis we search for the threshold unstable modes and derive the critical wave-length. The results are illustrated in the black string mass v.s. electric charge phase diagram. Similar diagram is constructed using global thermodynamic equilibrium argument applied to the charged string and 5D electrically charged black hole. The results derived illustrate that electric ch…
We study long wavelength perturbations of neutral black p-branes in asymptotically flat space and show that, as anticipated in the blackfold approach, solutions of the relativistic hydrodynamic equations for an effective p+1-dimensional fluid yield solutions to the vacuum Einstein equations in a derivative expansion. Going beyond the perfect fluid approximation, we compute the effective shear and bulk viscosities of the black brane. The values we obtain saturate generic bounds. Sound waves in the effective fluid are unstable, and have been previously related to the Gregory-Laflamme instability…
This paper continues the study of the Gregory-Laflamme instability of black strings, or more precisely of the order of the transition, being either first or second order, and the critical dimension which separates the two cases. First, we describe a novel method based on the Landau-Ginzburg perspective for the thermodynamics that somewhat improves the existing techniques. Second, we generalize the computation from a circle compactification to an arbitrary torus compactifications. We explain that the critical dimension cannot be lowered in this way, and moreover in all cases studied the transit…
We study evolution of gravitational perturbations of black strings. It is well known that for all wavenumber less than some threshold value, the black string is unstable against scalar type of gravitational perturbations, which is named the Gregory-Laflamme instability. Using numerical methods, we find the quasinormal modes and time-domain profiles of the black string perturbations in the stable sector and also show the appearance of the Gregory-Laflamme instability in the time domain. The dependence of the black string quasinormal spectrum and late time tails on such parameters as the wave ve…
Many and very general arguments indicate that the event horizon behaves as a stretched membrane. We explore this analogy by associating the Gregory-Laflamme instability of black strings with a classical membrane instability known as Rayleigh-Plateau instability. We show that the key features of the black string instability can be reproduced using this viewpoint. In particular, we get good agreement for the threshold mode in all dimensions and exact agreement for large spacetime dimensionality. The instability timescale is also well described within this model, as well as the dimensionality dep…
We investigate the stability analysis of Schwarzschild black hole in Einstein-scalar-Gauss-Bonnet (ESGB) theory because the instability of Schwarzschild black hole without scalar hair implies the Gauss-Bonnet black hole with scalar hair. The linearized scalar equation is compared to the Lichnerowicz-Ricci tensor equation in the Einstein-Weyl gravity. It turns out that the instability of Schwarzschild black hole in ESGB theory is interpreted as not the tachyonic instability, but the Gregory-Laflamme instability of black string. In the small mass regime of $1/λ<1.174/r_+$, the Schwarzschild solu…
We investigate the Gregory-Laflamme instability for black strings carrying KK-momentum along the internal direction. We demonstrate a simple kinematical relation between the thresholds of the classical instability for the boosted and static black strings. We also find that Sorkin's critical dimension depends on the internal velocity and in fact disappears for sufficiently large boosts. Our analysis implies the existence of an analogous instability for the five-dimensional black ring of Emparan and Reall. We also use our results for boosted black strings to construct a simple model of the black…
The D2-D0 bound state exhibits a Gregory-Laflamme instability when it is sufficiently non-extremal. If there are no D0-branes, the requisite non-extremality is finite. When most of the extremal mass comes from D0-branes, the requisite non-extremality is very small. The location of the threshhold for the instability is determined using a local thermodynamic analysis which is then checked against a numerical analysis of the linearized equations of motion. The thermodynamic analysis reveals an instability of non-commutative field theory at finite temperature, which may occur only at very long wav…
It is shown that the usual entropy argument for the Gregory-Laflamme (GL) instability for $some$ appropriate black strings and $p$-branes gives surprising agreement up to a few percent. This may provide a strong support to the GL's horizon fragmentation, which would produce the array of higher-dimensional Schwarzschild-type's black holes finally. On the other hand, another estimator for the size of the black hole end-state relative to the compact dimension indicates a second order (i.e., smooth) phase transition for some $other$ appropriate compactifications and total dimension of spacetime wh…
It is expected that the Gregory-Laflamme (GL) instability in the black string in gravity is related to the Rayleigh-Plateau instability in fluid mechanics. Especially, the orders of the phase transitions associated with these instabilities depend on the number of the transverse space dimensions, and they are of first and second order below and above the critical dimension. Through the gauge-gravity correspondence, the GL instability is conjectured to be thermodynamically related to the Hagedorn instability in large-N gauge theories, and it leads to a prediction that the order of the confinemen…
We reproduce and extend the previous studies of Lehner and Pretorius of the endpoint of the Gregory-Laflamme instability of black strings in five space-time dimensions. We consider unstable black strings of fixed thickness and different lengths, and in all cases we confirm that at the intermediate stages of the evolution the horizon can be interpreted as a quasistationary self-similar sequence of black strings connecting spherical black holes on different scales. However, we do not find any evidence for a global timescale relating subsequent generations. The endpoint of the instability is the …
We describe the behavior of a perturbed 5-dimensional black string subject to the Gregory-Laflamme instability. We show that the horizon evolves in a self-similar manner, where at any moment in the late-time development of the instability the horizon can be described as a sequence of 3-dimensional spherical black holes of varying size, joined by black string segments of similar radius. As with the initial black string, each local string segment is itself unstable, and this fuels the self-similar cascade to (classically) arbitrarily small scales; in the process the horizon develops a fractal st…
We show that for every asymptotically AdS solution compactified on a torus there is a corresponding Ricci-flat solution obtained by replacing the torus by a sphere, performing a Weyl rescaling of the metric and appropriately analytically continuing the dimension of the torus/sphere (as in generalized dimensional reduction). In particular, it maps Minkowski spacetime to AdS on a torus, the holographic stress energy tensor of AdS to the stress energy tensor due to a brane localized in the interior of spacetime and AdS black branes to (asymptotically flat) Schwarzschild black branes. Applying it …
It is argued that many non-extremal black branes exhibit a classical Gregory-Laflamme instability if, and only if, they are locally thermodynamically unstable. For some black branes, the Gregory-Laflamme instability must therefore disappear near extremality. For the black $p$-branes of the type II supergravity theories, the Gregory-Laflamme instability disappears near extremality for $p=1,2,4$ but persists all the way down to extremality for $p=5,6$ (the black D3-brane is not covered by the analysis of this paper). This implies that the instability also vanishes for the near-extremal black M2 …
We discuss the phase structure of N D4 branes wrapped on a temporal (Euclidean) and a spatial circle, in terms of the near-horizon AdS geometries. This system has been studied previously to understand four dimensional pure SU(N) Yang-Mills theory (YM4) through holography. In the usual treatment of the subject, the phase transition between the AdS soliton and the black D4 brane is interpreted as the strong coupling continuation of the confinement/deconfinement transition in YM4. We show that this interpretation is not valid, since the black D4 brane and the deconfinement phase of YM4 have diffe…
We explore via linearized perturbation theory the Gregory-Laflamme instability of rotating black strings with equal magnitude angular momenta. Our results indicate that the Gregory-Laflamme instability persists up to extremality for all even dimensions between six and fourteen. We construct rotating nonuniform black strings with two equal magnitude angular momenta in six dimensions. We see a first indication for the occurrence of a topology changing transition, associated with such rotating nonuniform black strings. Charged nonuniform black string configurations in heterotic string theory are …
We study gravitational perturbations of the Kerr-AdS_5 x S^5 spacetime with equal angular momenta. In this spacetime, we found the two kinds of classical instabilities, superradiant and Gregory-Laflamme instabilities. The superradiant instability is caused by the wave amplification via superradiance, and by wave reflection due to the potential barrier of the AdS spacetime. The Gregory-Laflamme instability appears in Kaluza-Klein modes of the internal space S^5 and breaks the symmetry SO(6). Taken into account these instabilities, the phase structure of Kerr-AdS_5 x S^5 spacetime is revealed. T…
We review recent progress on the instabilities of black strings and branes both for pure Einstein gravity as well as supergravity theories which are relevant for string theory. We focus mainly on Gregory-Laflamme instabilities. In the first part of the review we provide a detailed discussion of the classical gravitational instability of the neutral uniform black string in higher dimensional gravity. The uniform black string is part of a larger phase diagram of Kaluza-Klein black holes which will be discussed thoroughly. This phase diagram exhibits many interesting features including new phases…
We initiate the study of dynamical instabilities of higher-dimensional black holes using the blackfold approach, focusing on asymptotically flat boosted black strings and singly-spinning black rings in $D\ge5$. We derive novel analytic expressions for the growth rate of the Gregory-Laflamme instability for boosted black strings and its onset for arbitrary boost parameter. In the case of black rings, we study their stability properties in the region of parameter space that has so far remained inaccessible to numerical approaches. In particular, we show that very thin (ultraspinning) black rings…
We investigate (2+1)-dimensional black strings in the Kaluza-Klein spacetime. The system is classically stable as long as the horizon size is much larger than the size of the compact space. Semiclassically, however, the horizon size shrinks gradually due to the energy loss through the Hawking radiation. Eventually, the system will enter into the regime of the Gregory-Laflamme instability and get destabilized. Subsequently, the spherically symmetric black hole is formed and evaporated in the usual manner. This standard picture may be altered by the dynamics of the internal space which induced b…
We investigate the Gregory-Laflamme instability for bound states of branes in type II string theory and in M-theory. We examine systems with two different constituent branes: for instance, D3-F1 or D4-D0. For the cases in which the Gregory-Laflamme instability can occur, we describe the boundary of thermodynamic stability. We also present an argument for the validity of the Correlated Stability Conjecture, generalizing earlier work by Reall. We discuss the implications for OM theory and NCOS theory, finding that in both cases, there exists some critical temperature above which the system becom…
We describe the behavior of 5-dimensional black strings, subject to the Gregory-Laflamme instability. Beyond the linear level, the evolving strings exhibit a rich dynamics, where at intermediate stages the horizon can be described as a sequence of 3-dimensional spherical black holes joined by black string segments. These segments are themselves subject to a Gregory-Laflamme instability, resulting in a self-similar cascade, where ever-smaller satellite black holes form connected by ever-thinner string segments. This behavior is akin to satellite formation in low-viscosity fluid streams subject …
Using the inverse dimensional expansion method we study the elastic instability of black rings found recently in numerical analysis of fully nonlinear dynamical evolutions. In our analysis we should perform 1/D^1/2 expansions, not usual 1/D expansions, of the Einstein equations to capture this elastic instability of D dimensional black rings. By solving the Einstein equations at large D we obtain the effective equations for black rings, and the perturbation analysis of the large D effective equations with 1/D^1/2 expansions yields the formula for quasinormal mode frequencies. From this formula…
The scalarization of Reissner-Nordström black holes was recently proposed in the Einstein-Maxwell-scalar theory. Here, we show that the appearance of the scalarized Reissner-Nordström black hole is closely related to the Gregory-Laflamme instability of the Reissner-Nordström black hole without scalar hair.
We revisit the classical stability of Schwarzschild black hole in fourth-order theories of gravity. On the contrary of the stability of this black hole, it turns out that the linearized perturbations exhibit unstable modes featuring the Gregory-Laflamme instability of five-dimensional black string. This shows clearly an instability of black hole in fourth-order gravity with $α=-β/3$.
This is an introduction to the blackfold effective worldvolume theory for the dynamics of black branes, as well as its use as an approximate method for the construction of new black hole solutions. We also explain how the theory is useful for the analysis of dynamical, non-stationary situations, in particular of the Gregory-Laflamme instability of black branes.
Using an expansion in large number of dimensions, taken to subleading orders, we discuss several issues concerning the Gregory-Laflamme instabilities. We map out the phase diagram of neutral and charged black strings, and comment on the possible transition in the nature of the final state of the instability at higher order in the 1/D expansion. We also discuss unstable black membranes, and show that in certain limits the preferred shape of the non-uniform phase is a triangular lattice.
Gregory and Laflamme showed that certain nonextremal black strings (and p-branes) are unstable to linearized perturbations. It is widely believed that this instability will cause the black string horizon to classically pinch off and then quantum mechanically separate, resulting in higher dimensional black holes. We argue that this cannot happen. Under very mild assumptions, classical event horizons cannot pinch off. Instead, they settle down to new static black string solutions which are not translationally invariant along the string.
We consider 1+4 dimensional black string solutions which are invariant under translation along the fifth direction. The solutions are characterized by the two parameters, mass and tension, of the source. The Gregory-Laflamme solution is shown to be characterized by the tension whose magnitude is one half of the mass per unit length of the source. The general black string solution with arbitrary tension is presented and its properties are discussed.
We show that the Hawking-Page phase transition of a CFT on AdS_{d-1} weakly coupled to gravity has a dual bulk description in terms of a phase transition between a black string and a thermal gas on AdS_{d}. At even lower temperatures the black string develops a Gregory Laflamme instability, which is dual to black hole evaporation in the boundary theory.
We describe new numerical methods to solve the static axisymmetric vacuum Einstein equations in more than four dimensions. As an illustration, we study the compactified non-uniform black string phase connected to the uniform strings at the Gregory-Laflamme critical point. We compute solutions with a ratio of maximum to minimum horizon radius up to nine. For a fixed compactification radius, the mass of these solutions is larger than the mass of the classically unstable uniform strings. Thus they cannot be the end state of the instability.
In this paper we study the stability of an homogeneous black string in the presence of a negative cosmological constant with minimally coupled scalar fields by using the large $D$ effective theory. This method allows us to explore the dynamics of the black strings in the nonlinear regime. We find that up to the next-to-leading order of the $1/D$ expansion, the unique consistent solution of the equations of motion must be uniform. This means the recently found Gregory-Laflamme instability caused by fined-tuned non-generic perturbations would die out at late time in the evolution of the system.
We show that smeared brane solutions, where a charged black p-brane is smeared uniformly over one of the transverse directions, can have a Gregory-Laflamme type dynamical instability in the smeared direction even when the solution is locally thermodynamically stable. These thus provide counterexamples to the Gubser-Mitra conjecture, which links local dynamical and thermodynamic stability. The existence of a dynamical instability is demonstrated by exploiting an ansatz due to Harmark and Obers, which relates charged solutions to neutral ones.
In the Randall-Sundrum two-brane model (RS1), a Kerr black hole on the brane can be naturally identified with a section of rotating black string. To estimate Kaluza-Klein (KK) corrections on gravitational waves emitted by perturbed rotating black strings, we give the effective Teukolsky equation on the brane which is separable equation and hence numerically manageable. In this process, we derive the master equation for the electric part of the Weyl tensor $E_{μν}$ which would be also useful to discuss the transition from black strings to localized black holes triggered by Gregory-Laflamme inst…
Attention has been paid to the similarity and duality between the Gregory-Laflamme instability of black strings and the Rayleigh-Plateau instability of extended fluids. In this paper, we derive a set of simple (1+1)-dimensional equations from the Navier-Stokes equations describing thin flows of (non-relativistic and incompressible) viscous fluids. This formulation, a generalization of the theory of drop formation by Eggers and his collaborators, would make it possible to examine the final fate of Rayleigh-Plateau instability, its dimensional dependence, and possible self-similar behaviors befo…
We show that linear perturbations around the simplest black hole solution of massive bi-gravity theories, the bi-Schwarzschild solution, exhibit an unstable mode featuring the Gregory-Laflamme instability of higher-dimensional black strings. The result is obtained for the massive gravity theory which is free from the Boulware-Deser ghost, as well as for its extension with two dynamical metrics. These results may indicate that static black holes in massive gravity do not exist. For graviton mass of order of Hubble scale, however, the instability timescale is of order of the Hubble time.
The holographic conjecture for black holes localized on a 3-brane in Randall-Sundrum braneworld models RS2 predicts the existence of a classical 5D time dependent solution dual to a 4D evaporating black hole. After briefly reviewing recent criticism and presenting some difficulties in the holographic interpretation of the Gregory-Laflamme instability, we simulate some basic features of such a solution by studying null geodesics of the Schwarzschild black string, in particular those propagating nontrivially in the bulk, and using holographic arguments.
Analyzing a capillary minimizing problem for a higher-dimensional extended fluid, we find that there exist startling similarities between the black hole-black string system (the Gregory-Laflamme instability) and the liquid drop-liquid bridge system (the Rayleigh-Plateau instability), which were first suggested by a perturbative approach. In the extended fluid system, we confirm the existence of the critical dimension above which the non-uniform bridge (NUB, i.e., {\it Delaunay unduloid}) serves as the global minimizer of surface area. We also find a variety of phase structures (one or two cusp…
We explore via linearized perturbation theory the Gregory-Laflamme instability of the black string solutions of Einstein's equations with negative cosmological constant recently discussed in literature. Our results indicate that the black strings whose conformal infinity is the product of time and $S^{d-3}\times S^1$ are stable for large enough values of the event horizon radius. All topological black strings are also classically stable. We argue that this provides an explicit realization of the Gubser-Mitra conjecture.
We introduce a notion of universality classes for the Gregory-Laflamme instability and determine, in the supergravity approximation, the stability of a variety of solutions, including the non-extremal D3-brane, M2-brane, and M5-brane. These three non-dilatonic branes cross over from instability to stability at a certain non-extremal mass. Numerical analysis suggests that the wavelength of the shortest unstable mode diverges as one approaches the cross-over point from above, with a simple critical exponent which is the same in all three cases.
The negative mode of the Schwarzschild black hole is central to Euclidean quantum gravity around hot flat space and for the Gregory-Laflamme black string instability. We analyze the eigenvalue as a function of space-time dimension by constructing two perturbative expansions: one for large d and the other for small d-3, and determining as many coefficients as we are able to compute analytically. Joining the two expansions we obtain an interpolating rational function accurate to better than 2% through the whole range of dimensions including d=4.
We consider small black holes in $AdS_5\times S^5$, smeared on $S^5$. We compute the spectrum of $\ell \in [1,10]$ $S^5$-quasinormal modes corresponding to fluctuations leading to localization of these black holes on $S^5$. We recover the zero mode found by Hubeny and Rangamani (HR) previously \cite{Hubeny:2002xn}, and explicitly demonstrate that a Gregory-Laflamme type instability is at play in this system. The instability is associated with the expectation value of a dimension-5 operator.
Using recently developed numerical methods, we examine neutral compactified non-uniform black strings which connect to the Gregory-Laflamme critical point. By studying the geometry of the horizon we give evidence that this branch of solutions may connect to the black hole solutions, as conjectured by Kol. We find the geometry of the topology changing solution is likely to be nakedly singular at the point where the horizon radius is zero. We show that these solutions can all be expressed in the coordinate system discussed by Harmark and Obers.
We produce the first concrete evidence that violation of the weak cosmic censorship conjecture can occur in asymptotically flat spaces of five dimensions by numerically evolving perturbed black rings. For certain thin rings, we identify a new, elastic-type instability dominating the evolution, causing the system to settle to a spherical black hole. However, for sufficiently thin rings the Gregory-Laflamme mode is dominant, and the instability unfolds similarly to that of black strings, where the horizon develops a structure of bulges connected by necks which become ever thinner over time.
Plenty of efforts have been made to explore the black string and its instability, but the fate of the black strings with fewer extra dimensions is still inconclusive. Now starting from the 5D uniform black string, we show that the EHT observations of M87* and SgrA* can not only rule out the black string with an infinite extra dimension, but also constrain the length of a compact extra dimension, which is much smaller than the critical length given from the Gregory-Laflamme (GL) instability. Our findings support the hypothesis that the extra dimension is compact avoiding the GL instability.
The configuration resulting after a collision of gravitational sources in a higher dimensional space with extra dimensions is investigated. Evidence is found that as the energy increases, there is a phase transition in the topology of the black object that is being formed: from the Black Hole to the Black String topology. An intuitive mechanism for the way the transition takes place is being proposed. The transition occurs at a finite value of the energy where an upper and a lower bound is found. Furthermore, at low energies the compact dimension behaves as an extended one while at high energi…
The nonuniform black strings branch, which emerges from the critical Gregory-Laflamme string, is numerically constructed in dimensions 6 <= D <= 11 and extended into the strongly non-linear regime. All the solutions are more massive and less entropic than the marginal string. We find the asymptotic values of the mass, the entropy and other physical variables in the limit of large horizon deformations. By explicit metric comparison we verify that the local geometry around the ``waist'' of our most nonuniform solutions is cone-like with less than 10% deviation. We find evidence that in this regi…
It has been conjectured that higher-dimensional rotating black holes become unstable at a sufficiently large value of the rotation, and that new black holes with pinched horizons appear at the threshold of the instability. We search numerically, and find, the stationary axisymmetric perturbations of Myers-Perry black holes with a single spin that mark the onset of the instability and the appearance of the new black hole phases. We also find new ultraspinning Gregory-Laflamme instabilities of rotating black strings and branes.
Various higher-dimensional black holes have been shown to be unstable by studying linearized gravitational perturbations. A simpler method for demonstrating instability is to find initial data that describes a small perturbation of the black hole and violates a Penrose inequality. An easy way to construct initial data is by conformal rescaling of the unperturbed black hole initial data. For a compactified black string, we construct initial data which violates the inequality almost exactly where the Gregory-Laflamme instability appears. We then use the method to confirm the existence of the "ul…
