A correspondence between closed strings in their high-temperature Hagedorn phase and asymptotically de Sitter (dS) space is established. We identify a thermal, conformal field theory (CFT) whose partition function is, on the one hand, equal to the partition function of closed, interacting, fundamental strings in their Hagedorn phase yet is, on the other hand, also equal to the Hartle-Hawking (HH) wavefunction of an asymptotically dS Universe. The Lagrangian of the CFT is a functional of a single scalar field, the condensate of a thermal scalar, which is proportional to the entropy density of the strings. The correspondence has some aspects in common with the anti-de Sitter/CFT correspondence, as well as with some of its proposed analytic continuations to a dS/CFT correspondence, but it also has some important conceptual and technical differences. The equilibrium state of the CFT is one of maximal pressure and entropy, and it is at a temperature that is above but parametrically close to the Hagedorn temperature. The CFT is valid beyond the regime of semiclassical gravity and thus defines the initial quantum state of the dS Universe in a way that replaces and supersedes the HH wavefunction. Two-point correlation functions of the CFT scalar field are used to calculate the spectra of the corresponding metric perturbations in the asymptotically dS Universe and, hence, cosmological observables in the post-inflationary epoch. Similarly, higher-point correlation functions in the CFT should lead to more complicated cosmological observables.
We study non-perturbative aspects of the Hagedorn transition for IIB string theory in an anti-de Sitter spacetime in the limit that the string length goes to infinity. The theory has a holographic dual in terms of free $\NN=4$ super-Yang-Mills theory on a three-dimensional sphere. We define a double scaling limit in which the width of the transition region around the Hagedorn temperature scales with the effective string coupling with a critical exponent. We show that in this limit the transition is smoothed out by quantum effects. In particular, the Hagedorn singularity of perturbative string …
We show that the Hagedorn temperature obtained from experimental spectra is larger for mesons than for baryons. Dual string models explain this behavior asymptotically.
We consider the critical behavior for a string theory near the Hagedorn temperature. We use the factorization of the worldsheet to isolate the Hagedorn divergences at all genera. We show that the Hagedorn divergences can be resummed by introducing double scaling limits, which smooth the divergences. The double scaling limits also allow one to extract the effective potential for the thermal scalar. For a string theory in an asymptotic anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetime, the AdS/CFT correspondence implies that the critical Hagedorn behavior and the relation with the effective potential should also a…
We show that the entropy of de Sitter space in any dimension can be understood as the entropy of a highly excited string located near the horizon. The string tension is renormalized to $T \sim Λ$ due to the large gravitational redshift near the horizon. The de Sitter temperature is given by the Hagedorn temperature of the string.
It has recently been shown that a Hagedorn phase of string gas cosmology can provide a causal mechanism for generating a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of scalar metric fluctuations, without the need for an intervening period of de Sitter expansion. In this paper we compute the spectrum of tensor metric fluctuations (gravitational waves) in this scenario, and show that it is also nearly scale-invariant. However, whereas the spectrum of scalar modes has a small red-tilt, the spectrum of tensor modes has a small blue tilt, unlike what occurs in slow-roll inflation. This provides a possible obse…
Despite the recent evidence that anti-de Sitter spacetime is nonlinearly unstable, we argue that many asymptotically anti-de Sitter solutions are nonlinearly stable. This includes geons, boson stars, and black holes. As part of our argument, we calculate the frequencies of long-lived gravitational quasinormal modes of AdS black holes in various dimensions. We also discuss a new class of asymptotically anti-de Sitter solutions describing noncoalescing black hole binaries.
We obtain dS and AdS generalized Reissner-Nordstrom like black hole geometries in a curved D3-brane frame-work, underlying a noncommutative gauge theory on the brane-world. The noncommutative scaling limit is explored to investigate a possible tunneling of an AdS vacuum in string theory to dS vacuum in its low energy gravity theory. The Hagedorn transition is invoked into its self-dual gauge theory to decouple the gauge nonlinearity from the dS geometry, which in turn is shown to describe a pure dS vacuum.
In order to get a better understanding of holographic properties of gravitational theories with a vanishing cosmological constant, we analyze in detail the relation between asymptotically anti-de Sitter and asymptotically flat spacetimes in three dimensions. This relation is somewhat subtle because the limit of vanishing cosmological constant cannot be naively taken in standard Fefferman-Graham coordinates. After reformulating the standard anti-de Sitter results in Robinson-Trautman coordinates, a suitably modified Penrose limit is shown to connect both asymptotic regimes.
We discuss several aspects of the relation between asymptotically AdS and asymptotically dS spacetimes including: the continuation between these types of spaces, the global stability of asymptotically dS spaces and the structure of limits within this class, holographic renormalization, and the maximal mass conjecture of Balasubramanian-deBoer-Minic.
We study here the gravitational collapse of a matter cloud with a non-vanishing tangential pressure in the presence of a non-zero cosmological term. Conditions for bounce and singularity formation are derived for the model. It is also shown that when the tangential pressures vanish, the bounce and singularity conditions reduce to that of the dust case studied earlier. The collapsing interior is matched with an exterior which is asymptotically de Sitter or anti de Sitter, depending on the sign of cosmological constant. The junction conditions for matching the cloud to exterior are specified. Th…
A continuum of new monopole and dyon solutions in the Einstein-Yang-Mills theory in asymptotically anti-de Sitter space are found. They are regular everywhere and specified with their mass, and non-Abelian electric and magnetic charges. A class of monopole solutions which have no node in non-Abelian magnetic fields are shown to be stable against spherically symmetric linear perturbations.
Unlike the extremal Reissner - Nordström black hole in ordinary spacetime, the one in anti-de Sitter spacetime is a minimum of action and has zero entropy if quantization is carried out after extremalization. However, if extremalization is carried out after quantization, then the entropy is a quarter of the area as in the usual case.
We provide a prescription to compute the gravitational multipole moments of compact objects for asymptotically de Sitter spacetimes. Our prescription builds upon a recent definition of the gravitational multipole moments in terms of Noether charges associated to specific vector fields, within the residual harmonic gauge, dubbed multipole symmetries. We first derive the multipole symmetries for spacetimes which are asymptotically de Sitter; we also show that these symmetry vector fields eliminate the non-propagating degrees of freedom from the linearized gravitational wave equation in a suitabl…
We consider $n$-dimensional asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetimes in higher curvature gravitational theories with $n \geq 4$, by employing the conformal completion technique. We first argue that a condition on the Ricci tensor should be supplemented to define an asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetime in higher curvature gravitational theories and propose an alternative definition of an asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetime. Based on that definition, we then derive a conservation law of the gravitational field and construct conserved quantities in two classes of higher curvature gravitati…
We generalize a notion of 'conserved' charges given by Wald and Zoupas to the asymptotically de Sitter spacetimes. Surprisingly, our construction is less ambiguous than the one encountered in the asymptotically flat context. An expansion around exact solutions possessing Killing vectors provides their physical meaning. In particular, we discuss a question of how to define energy and angular momenta of gravitational waves propagating on Kottler and Carter backgrounds. We show that obtained expressions have a correct limit as $Λ\to 0$. We also comment on the relation between this approach and th…
We show that complex, massive spin-1 fields minimally coupled to Einstein's gravity with a negative cosmological constant, admit asymptotically anti-de Sitter self-gravitating solutions. Focusing on 4-dimensional spacetimes, we start by obtaining analytical solutions in the test-field limit, where the Proca field equations can be solved in a fixed anti-de Sitter background, and then find fully non-linear solutions numerically. These solutions are a natural extension of the recently found asymptotically flat Proca stars and share similar properties with scalar boson stars. In particular, we sho…
In this work, we present a numerical scheme to study the quasinormal modes of the time-dependent Vaidya black hole metric in asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetime. The proposed algorithm is primarily based on a generalized matrix method for quasinormal modes. The main feature of the present approach is that the quasinormal frequency, as a function of time, is obtained by a generalized secular equation and therefore a satisfactory degree of precision is achieved. The implications of the results are discussed.
A new proof of Friedrich's theorem on the existence and stability of asymptotically de Sitter spaces in 3+1 dimensions is given, which extends to all even dimensions. In addition, we characterize the possible limits of spaces which are globally asymptotically de Sitter, to the past and future.
In this short note, we verify explicitly in static coordinates that the non trivial asymptotic Killing vectors at spatial infinity for anti-de Sitter space-times correspond one to one to the conformal Killing vectors of the conformally flat metric induced on the boundary. The fall-off conditions for the metric perturbations that guarantee finiteness of the associated conserved charges are derived.
An invariant definition of mass in asymptotically de-Sitter space-times is given that relies on the existence of a time-like Killing vector on a sphere surrounding the mass but does not require going to an asymptotic region. In particular the mass can be calculated exactly on a sphere inside the cosmological horizon. The formalism requires varying the background metric solution by a perturbation that satisfies the linearized equations of motion but need not share the Killing symmetry of the solution and is therefore ideally suited to calculating masses in stationary space-times perturbed by a …
We study the Maxwell quasinormal spectrum on asymptotically anti-de Sitter black holes with a set of two Robin type boundary conditions, by requiring the energy flux to vanish at asymptotic infinity. Focusing, for illustrative purposes, on Schwarzschild-anti-de Sitter black holes both without and with a global monopole, we unveil that, on the one hand, the Maxwell quasinormal spectrum bifurcates as the black hole radius increases for both boundary conditions, which is termed the mode split effect; while on the other hand, with an appropriate fixed black hole radius but increasing the monopole …
We study the propagation of a massless scalar wave in de Sitter spacetime perturbed by an arbitrary central mass. By focusing on the late time limit, this probes the portion of the scalar signal traveling inside the null cone. Unlike in asymptotically flat spacetimes, the amplitude of the scalar field detected by an observer at timelike infinity does not decay back to zero but develops a spacetime constant shift - both at zeroth and first order in the central mass M. This indicates that massless scalar field propagation in asymptotically de Sitter spacetimes exhibits both linear and nonlinear …
For spaces which are not asymptotically anti-de Sitter where the asymptotic behavior is deformed by replacing the cosmological constant by a dilaton scalar potential, we show that it is possible to have well-defined boundary stress-energy tensors and finite Euclidean actions by adding appropriate surface counterterms. We illustrate the method by the examples of domain-wall black holes in gauged supergravities, three-dimensional dilaton black holes and topological dilaton black holes in four dimensions. We calculate the boundary stress-energy tensor and Euclidean action of these black configura…
We revisit the asymptotically Anti de Sitter spacetimes in three dimensions. Using the conformal-completion technique, we formulate the boundary conditions in a covariant fashion and construct the global charges associated with the asymptotic symmetries. The charges so constructed are conserved for the asymptotic Killing vectors fields but are not conserved for the asymptotic conformal Killing vector fields. The quantity integrated to obtain the global charge is interpreted as the Brown-York boundary stress-energy tensor and it is found not to be traceless. The trace is interpreted as the trac…
Asymptotically de Sitter spaces can be described by Euclidean boundary theories with entropies given by the modified Cardy--Verlinde formula. We show that the Cardy--Verlinde formula describes a string with a rescaled tension which in fact is a string at the stretched cosmological horizon as seen from the boundary. The temperature of the boundary theory is the rescaled Hagedorn temperature of the string. Our results agree with an alternative description of asymptotically de Sitter spaces in terms of strings on the stretched horizon. The relation between the two descriptions is given by the lar…
We investigate the thermodynamics of spherically symmetric black hole solutions in a four-dimensional Einstein--Yang-Mills-SU(2) theory with a negative cosmological constant. Special attention is paid to configurations with a unit magnetic charge. We find that a set of Reissner-Nordström--Anti-de Sitter black holes can become unstable to forming non-Abelian hair. However, the hairy black holes are never thermodynamically favoured over the full set of abelian monopole solutions. The thermodynamics of the generic configurations possessing a noninteger magnetic charge is also discussed.
We consider the brane universe in the bulk background of the topological AdS-Schwarzschild black holes, where the brane tension takes larger value than the fine-tunned value. The resulting universe is radiation dominated and has positive cosmological constant. We obtain the associated cosmological Cardy formula and the Cardy-Verlinde formula. We also derive the Hubble and the Bekenstein entropy bounds from the conjectured holography bound on the Casimir entropy.
A variety of gravitational dynamics problems in asymptotically anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetime are amenable to efficient numerical solution using a common approach involving a null slicing of spacetime based on infalling geodesics, convenient exploitation of the residual diffeomorphism freedom, and use of spectral methods for discretizing and solving the resulting differential equations. Relevant issues and choices leading to this approach are discussed in detail. Three examples, motivated by applications to non-equilibrium dynamics in strongly coupled gauge theories, are discussed as instructi…
We present a covariant phase space construction of hamiltonian generators of asymptotic symmetries with `Dirichlet' boundary conditions in de Sitter spacetime, extending a previous study of Jäger. We show that the de Sitter charges so defined are identical to those of Ashtekar, Bonga, and Kesavan (ABK). We then present a comparison of ABK charges with other notions of de Sitter charges. We compare ABK charges with counterterm charges, showing that they differ only by a constant offset, which is determined in terms of the boundary metric alone. We also compare ABK charges with charges defined b…
We study gravity interacting with a special kind of QCD-inspired nonlinear gauge field system which earlier was shown to yield confinement-type effective potential (the "Cornell potential") between charged fermions ("quarks") in flat space-time. We find new static spherically symmetric solutions generalizing the usual Reissner-Nordstroem-de-Sitter and Reissner-Nordstroem-anti-de-Sitter black holes with the following additional properties: (i) appearance of a constant radial electric field (in addition to the Coulomb one); (ii) novel mechanism of {\em dynamical generation} of cosmological const…
We construct a covariant phase space for Einstein gravity in dimensions d>=4 with negative cosmological constant, describing black holes in local equilibrium. Thus, space-times under consideration are asymptotically anti-de Sitter and admit an inner boundary representing an isolated horizon. This allows us to derive a first law of black hole mechanics that involves only quantities defined quasi-locally at the horizon, without having to assume that the bulk space-time is stationary. The first law proposed by Gibbons et al. for the Kerr-AdS family follows from a special case of this much more ge…
We investigate static inhomogeneous charged planar black hole solutions of the Einstein-Maxwell system in an asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetime. Within the framework of linear perturbations, the solutions are numerically and analytically constructed from the Reissner-Nordström-AdS black hole solution. The perturbation analysis predicts that the Cauchy horizon always disappears for any wavelength perturbation, supporting the strong cosmic censorship conjecture. For extremal black holes, we analytically show that an observer freely falling into the black hole feels infinite tidal force at t…
Conditions for thermodynamic stability of asymptotically anti-de Sitter rotating black holes in D-dimensions are determined. Local thermodynamic stability requires not only positivity conditions on the specific heat and the moment of inertia tensor but it is also necessary that the adiabatic compressibility be positive. It is shown that, in the absence of a cosmological constant, neither rotation nor charge is sufficient to ensure full local thermodynamic stability of a black hole. Thermodynamic stability properties of anti-de Sitter Myers-Perry black holes are investigated for both singly spi…
We investigate a recent proposal for defining a conserved mass in asymptotically de Sitter spacetimes that is based on a conjectured holographic duality between such spacetimes and Euclidean conformal field theory. We show that an algorithm for deriving such terms in asymptotically anti de Sitter spacetimes has an asymptotically de Sitter counterpart, and derive the explicit form for such terms up to 9 dimensions. We show that divergences of the on-shell action for de Sitter spacetime are removed in any dimension in inflationary coordinates, but in covering coordinates a linear divergence rema…
We show that a Hagedorn spectrum (i.e., spectrum where the number of hadrons grows exponentially with the mass) emerges automatically in large $N_c$ QCD in 2+1 and 3+1 dimensions. The approach is based on the study of Euclidean space correlation functions for composite operators constructed from quark and gluon fields and exploits the fact that the short time behavior of the correlators is known in QCD. The demonstration relies on one critical assumption: that perturbation theory accurately describes the trace of the logarithm of a matrix of point-to-point correlation functions in the regime w…
We prove uniqueness, existence, and regularity results for maximal hypersurfaces in spacetimes with a conformal completion at timelike infinity and asymptotically constant scalar curvature, as relevant for asymptotically AdS spacetimes. This work is dedicated to Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat on the occasion of her upcoming 99th birthday.
We prove upper bounds on angular momentum and centre of mass in terms of the Hamiltonian mass and cosmological constant for non-singular asymptotically anti-de Sitter initial data sets satisfying the dominant energy condition. We work in all space-dimensions larger than or equal to three, and allow a large class of asymptotic backgrounds, with spherical and non-spherical conformal infinities; in the latter case, a spin-structure compatibility condition is imposed. We give a large class of non-trivial examples saturating the inequality. We analyse exhaustively the borderline case in space-time …
Based on the recent paper hep-th/0503045, we derive a formula of calculating conserved charges in even dimensional asymptotically {\it locally} anti-de Sitter space-times by using the definition of Wald and Zoupas. This formula generalizes the one proposed by Ashtekar {\it et al}. Using the new formula we compute the masses of Taub-Bolt-AdS space-times by treating Taub-Nut-AdS space-times as the reference solution. Our result agrees with those resulting from "background subtraction" method or "boundary counterterm" method. We also calculate the conserved charges of Kerr-Taub-Nut-AdS solutions …
The availability of scaling solutions in renormalisation group improved versions of cosmology are investigated in the high-energy limit. We adopt $f(R)$-type models of quantum gravity which display an interacting ultraviolet fixed point at shortest distances. Expanding the gravitational fixed point action to very high order in the curvature scalar, we detect a convergence-limiting singularity in the complex field plane. Resummation techniques including Padé approximants as well as infinite order approximations of the effective action are used to maximise the domain of validity. We find that th…
We consider (four dimensional) gravity coupled to a scalar field with potential V(ϕ). The potential satisfies the positive energy theorem for solutions that asymptotically tend to a negative local minimum. We show that for a large class of such potentials, there is an open set of smooth initial data that evolve to naked singularities. Hence cosmic censorship does not hold for certain reasonable matter theories in asymptotically anti de Sitter spacetimes. The asymptotically flat case is more subtle. We suspect that potentials with a local Minkowski minimum may similarly lead to violations of co…
Asymptotically anti-de Sitter space-times are considered in a general dimension $d\ge 4$. As one might expect, the boundary conditions at infinity ensure that the asymptotic symmetry group is the anti-de Sitter group (although there is an interesting subtlety if d=4). Asymptotic field equations imply that, associated with each generator $ξ$ of this group, there is a quantity $Q_ξ$ which satisfies the expected `balance equation' if there is flux of physical matter fields across the boundary $\I$ at infinity and is absolutely conserved in absence of this flux. Irrespective of the dimension d, al…
We give a definition of mass for spacelike hypersurfaces in space-times with metrics which are asymptotic to the anti-de Sitter one, or to a class of generalizations thereof. We present the results of gr-qc/0110014 which show that our definition provides a geometric invariant for a spacelike hypersurface embedded in a space-time. Some further global invariants are also given.
We consider two BF formulations of the theory of gravity with a negative cosmological constant, of Plebanski and of MacDowell-Mansouri. Both give the standard Einstein equations in the bulk but differ in expressions of edge charges. We compute the asymptotic charges explicitly in both theories for AdS-Schwarzschild, AdS-Kerr, and AdS-Taub--NUT solutions. We find that while in the case of the Plebanski theory the charges are divergent, they are finite for MacDowell-Mansouri theory. Furthermore, we show that in the case of the arbitrary asymptotically AdS spacetimes, MacDowell--Mansouri asymptot…
We consider asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetimes in three-dimensional topologically massive gravity with a negative cosmological constant, for all values of the mass parameter $μ$ ($μ\neq0$). We provide consistent boundary conditions that accommodate the recent solutions considered in the literature, which may have a slower fall-off than the one relevant for General Relativity. These conditions are such that the asymptotic symmetry is in all cases the conformal group, in the sense that they are invariant under asymptotic conformal transformations and that the corresponding Virasoro generat…
In this paper, we probe in 4D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet black hole and its thermodynamics. We illustrate the three asymptotically 4D EGB spacetime as an asymptotically flat, de Sitter, and Anti-de Sitter. Also, we apply the tunneling of the massless particles from the horizon of 4D EGB gravity and we investigate the correlation between the emission modes and temperature of the horizon. In asymptotically flat spacetime, the existence of the coupling constant alone constructs the regular spacetime, the radiation deviates from the pure thermal, and the temperature of the black hole horizon would be z…
We report on numerical constructions of fully non-linear geons in asymptotically anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetimes in four dimensions. Our approach is based on 3+1 formalism and spectral methods in a gauge combining maximal slicing and spatial harmonic coordinates. We are able to construct several families of geons seeded by different families of spherical harmonics. We can reach unprecedentedly high amplitudes, with mass of order $\sim 1/2$ of the AdS length, and with deviations of the order of 50\% compared to third order perturbative approaches. The consistency of our results with numerical r…
We investigate the thermodynamics of a four-dimensional charged black hole in a finite cavity in asymptotically flat and asymptotically de Sitter space. In each case, we find a Hawking-Page-like phase transition between a black hole and a thermal gas very much like the known transition in asymptotically anti-de Sitter space. For a ``supercooled'' black hole--a thermodynamically unstable black hole below the critical temperature for the Hawking-Page phase transition--the phase diagram has a line of first-order phase transitions that terminates in a second order point. For the asymptotically fla…
We apply the formalism of geometrothermodynamics to the case of black holes with cosmological constant in four and higher dimensions. We use a thermodynamic metric which is invariant with respect to Legendre transformations and determines the geometry of the space of equilibrium states. For all known black holes in higher dimensions, we show that the curvature scalar of the thermodynamic metric in all the cases is proportional to the heat capacity. As a consequence, phase transitions, which correspond to divergencies of the heat capacity, are represented geometrically as true curvature singula…
The evolution of the universe is determined by its quantum state. The wave function of the universe obeys the constraints of general relativity and in particular the Wheeler-DeWitt equation (WDWE). For non-zero Λ, we show that solutions of the WDWE at large volume have two domains in which geometries and fields are asymptotically real. In one the histories are Euclidean asymptotically anti-de Sitter, in the other they are Lorentzian asymptotically classical de Sitter. Further, the universal complex semiclassical asymptotic structure of solutions of the WDWE implies that the leading order in \h…
This thesis is organized as follows. In Chapter 2, some preliminaries are given on isometries and conformal symmetries, and we become familiar with the Virasoro algebra. Two examples of classical central charges are discussed. Chapter 3 contains an introduction to the Hamiltonian formulation of gauge theories in the context of Maxwell theory. The knowledge gained in Chapter 3 is applied to general relativity in Chapter 4. The Hamiltonian is shown to acquire a surface term due to the presence of the boundary. The geometrical properties of anti-de Sitter space and the BTZ black hole are the subj…
In this paper, we show that a universe with a dynamical cosmological constant approaching pure de Sitter at timelike infinity, enjoys an infinite dimensional symmetry group at its horizon. This group is larger than the usual $SO(4,1)$ of pure de Sitter. The charges associated with the asymptotic symmetry generators are non-integrable, and we demonstrate that they promote an extended version of the first law of thermodynamics. This contains four pairs of conjugate variables. The pair $(Θ,Λ)$ corresponding to the change in the cosmological constant and its conjugate volume $Θ$. The contribution …
We consider Kerr-de Sitter spacetimes and evaluate their mass, angular momentum and entropy according to the boundary counterterm prescription. We provide a physicall interpretation for angular velocity and angular momentum at future/past infinity. We show that the entropy of the four-dimensional Kerr-de Sitter spacetimes is less than of pure de Sitter spacetime in agreement to the entropic N-bound. Moreover, we show that maximal mass conjecture which states any asymptotically de Sitter spacetime with mass greater than de Sitter has a cosmological singularity is respected by asymptotically de …
We construct two types of phase spaces for asymptotically de Sitter Einstein-Hilbert gravity in each spacetime dimension $d \ge 3$. One type contains solutions asymptotic to the expanding spatially-flat ($k=0$) cosmological patch of de Sitter space while the other is asymptotic to the expanding hyperbolic $(k=-1)$ patch. Each phase space has a non-trivial asymptotic symmetry group (ASG) which includes the isometry group of the corresponding de Sitter patch. For $d=3$ and $k=-1$ our ASG also contains additional generators and leads to a Virasoro algebra with vanishing central charge. Furthermor…
Observational evidence suggests that our universe is currently evolving towards an asymptotically de Sitter future. Unfortunately and in spite of much recent attention, various quantum, holographic and cosmological aspects of de Sitter space remain quite enigmatic. With such intrigue in mind, this paper considers the ``construction'' of a toy model that describes an asymptotically de Sitter universe. More specifically, we add fluid-like matter to an otherwise purely de Sitter spacetime, formulate the relevant solutions and then discuss the cosmological and holographic implications. If the obje…
We propose that the state represented by the Nariai black hole inside de Sitter space is the ground state of the de Sitter gravity, while the pure de Sitter space is the maximal energy state. With this point of view, we investigate thermodynamics of de Sitter space, we find that if there is a dual field theory, this theory can not be a CFT in a fixed dimension. Near the Nariai limit, we conjecture that the dual theory is effectively an 1+1 CFT living on the radial segment connecting the cosmic horizon and the black hole horizon. If we go beyond the de Sitter limit, the "imaginary" high tempera…
The thermal equilibrium of string gas is necessary to activate the Brandenberger-Vafa mechanism, which makes our observed 4-dimensional universe enlarge. Nevertheless, the thermal equilibrium is not realized in the original setup, a problem that remains as a critical defect. We study thermal equilibrium in the Hagedorn universe, and explore possibilities for avoiding the issue aforementioned flaw. We employ a minimal modification of the original setup, introducing a dilaton potential. Two types of potential are investigated: exponential and double-well potentials. For the first type, the basic…
Asymptotically warped AdS spacetimes in topologically massive gravity with negative cosmological constant are considered in the case of spacelike stretched warping, where black holes have been shown to exist. We provide a set of asymptotic conditions that accommodate solutions in which the local degree of freedom (the "massive graviton") is switched on. An exact solution with this property is explicitly exhibited and possesses a slower fall-off than the warped AdS black hole. The boundary conditions are invariant under the semidirect product of the Virasoro algebra with a u(1) current algebra.…
