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We conjecture a chaos energy bound, an upper bound on the energy dependence of the Lyapunov exponent for any classical/quantum Hamiltonian mechanics and field theories. The conjecture states that the Lyapunov exponent $\lambda(E)$ grows no faster than linearly in the total energy $E$ in the high energy limit. In other words, the exponent $c$ in $\lambda(E) \propto E^c \,(E\to\infty)$ satisfies $c\leq 1$. This chaos energy bound stems from thermodynamic consistency of out-of-time-order correlators (OTOC's) and applies to any classical/quantum system with finite $N$ / large $N$ ($N$ is the number of degrees of freedom) under plausible physical conditions on the Hamiltonians. To the best of our knowledge the chaos energy bound is satisfied by any classically chaotic Hamiltonian system known, and is consistent with the cerebrated chaos bound by Maldacena, Shenker and Stanford which is for quantum cases at large $N$. We provide arguments supporting the conjecture for generic classically chaotic billiards and multi-particle systems. The existence of the chaos energy bound may put a fundamental constraint on physical systems and the universe., Comment: 3 pages, plus 7 pages of supplemental material; v2: minor revision with a reference and a footnote added

We discuss a field transformation from fields $\psi_a$ to other fields $\phi_i$ that involves derivatives, $\phi_i = \bar \phi_i(\psi_a, \partial_\alpha \psi_a, \ldots ;x^\mu)$, and derive conditions for this transformation to be invertible, primarily focusing on the simplest case that the transformation maps between a pair of two fields and involves up to their first derivatives. General field transformation of this type changes number of degrees of freedom, hence for the transformation to be invertible, it must satisfy certain degeneracy conditions so that additional degrees of freedom do not appear. Our derivation of necessary and sufficient conditions for invertible transformation is based on the method of characteristics, which is used to count the number of independent solutions of a given differential equation. As applications of the invertibility conditions, we show some non-trivial examples of the invertible field transformations with derivatives, and also give a rigorous proof that a simple extension of the disformal transformation involving a second derivative of the scalar field is not invertible., Comment: 38 pages. v2: typos corrected, published version

We investigate linear and non-linear dynamics of spherically symmetric perturbations on a static configuration in scalar-tensor theories focusing on the chameleon screening mechanism. We particularly address two questions: how much the perturbations can source the fifth force when the static background is well screened, and whether the resultant fifth force can change the stability and structure of the background configuration. For linear perturbations, we derive a lower bound for the square of the Fourier mode frequency $\omega^2$ using the adiabatic approximation. There may be unstable modes if this lower bound is negative, and we find that the condition of the instability can be changed by the fifth force although this effect is suppressed by the screening parameter. For non-linear perturbations, because we are mainly interested in short wavelength modes for which the fifth force may become stronger, we perform numerical simulations under the planar approximation. For a sufficiently large initial amplitude of the density perturbation, we find that the magnitude of the fifth force can be comparable to that of Newtonian gravity even when the model parameters are chosen so that the static background is well screened. It is also shown that if the screening is effective for the static background, the fluid dynamics is mostly governed by the pressure gradient and is not significantly affected by the fifth force., Comment: 31 pages, 8 figures

We examine hidden symmetry and its relation to the separability of the Maxwell equation on the Wahlquist spacetime. After seeing that the Wahlquist spacetime is a type-D spacetime whose repeated principal null directions are shear-free and geodesic, we show that the spacetime admits three gauged conformal Killing-Yano (GCKY) tensors which are in a relation with torsional conformal Killing-Yano tensors. As a by-product, we obtain an ordinary CKY tensor. We also show that thanks to the GCKY tensors, the Maxwell equation reduces to three Debye equations, which are scalar-type equations, and two of them can be solved by separation of variables., 13 pages, 2 figures, v2: typos corrected

We investigate catalysis induced by a dyonic impurity in the metastable vacuum studied by Kachru, Pearson, and Verlinde, which can be relevant to vacuum decay in the Kachru-Kallosh-Linde-Trivedi scenario. The impurity is a D3-brane wrapping on S3 in the Klebanov-Strassler geometry. The effect of the D3-brane can be encoded in the world-volume theory of an NS5-brane as an electromagnetic field on it. As the field strength becomes large, the instability of the vacuum increases. As a result, the lifetime of the metastable vacuum becomes drastically shorter.

We investigate catalysis induced by a dyonic impurity in the metastable vacuum studied by Kachru, Pearson and Verlinde, which can be relevant to vacuum decay in the KKLT scenario. The impurity is a D3-brane wrapping on $ \mathbb{S}^3$ in the Klebanov-Strassler geometry. The effect of the D3-brane can be encoded in the world-volume theory of an NS5-brane as an electromagnetic field on it. As the field strength becomes large, instability of the vacuum enhances. As a result, the lifetime of the metastable vacuum becomes drastically shorter.

We formulate explicitly the necessary and sufficient conditions for the local invertibility of a field transformation involving derivative terms. Our approach is to apply the method of characteristics of differential equations, by treating such a transformation as differential equations that give new variables in terms of original ones. The obtained results generalise the well-known and widely used inverse function theorem. Taking into account that field transformations are ubiquitous in modern physics and mathematics, our criteria for invertibility will find many useful applications., 5 pages

Recently a new formalism for perturbations of Maxwell's equations on the background of the Kerr-NUT-(A)dS spacetime was proposed, with which the equations are reduced to a equation of motion of a scalar field that can be solved by separation of variables. In this formalism the differential operators that commute with the operators of the equations of motion, called symmetry operators, played a key role to establish the separable structure. In this work we propose a method to reproduce these commuting symmetry operators in terms of the geometric quantities associated to the hidden symmetry of the background spacetime., Comment: 10 pages. Proceedings for the 11th MSJ-SI "The Role of Metrics in the Theory of Partial Differential Equations"; accepted for publication in Advanced Studies in Pure Mathematics

We focus on the method recently proposed by Lunin and Frolov-Krtou\v{s}-Kubiz\v{n}\'{a}k to solve the Maxwell equation on the Kerr-NUT-(A)dS spacetime by separation of variables. In their method, it is crucial that the background spacetime has hidden symmetries because they generate commuting symmetry operators with which the separation of variables can be achieved. In this work we reproduce these commuting symmetry operators in a covariant fashion. We first review the procedure known as the Eisenhart-Duval lift to construct commuting symmetry operators for given equations of motion. Then we apply this procedure to the Lunin-Frolov-Krtou\v{s}-Kubiz\v{n}\'{a}k (LFKK) equation. It is shown that the commuting symmetry operators obtained for the LFKK equation coincide with the ones previously obtained by Frolov-Krtou\v{s}-Kubiz\v{n}\'{a}k, up to first-order symmetry operators corresponding to Killing vector fields. We also address the Teukolsky equation on the Kerr-NUT-(A)dS spacetime and its symmetry operator is constructed., Comment: 26 pages, 1 figure. v2: typos corrected

This work studies wave propagation in the most general scalar-tensor theories, particularly focusing on the causal structure realized in these theories and also the shock formation process induced by nonlinear effects. For these studies we use the Horndeski theory and its generalization to the two scalar field case. We show that propagation speeds of gravitational wave and scalar field wave in these theories may differ from the light speed depending on background field configuration, and find that a Killing horizon becomes a boundary of causal domain if the scalar fields share the symmetry of the background spacetime. About the shock formation, we focus on transport of discontinuity in second derivatives of the metric and scalar field in the shift-symmetric Horndeski theory. We find that amplitude of the discontinuity generically diverges within finite time, which corresponds to shock formation. It turns out that the canonical scalar field and the scalar DBI model, among other theories described by the Horndeski theory, are free from such shock formation even when the background geometry and scalar field configuration are nontrivial. We also observe that gravitational wave is protected against shock formation when the background has some symmetries at least. This fact may indicate that the gravitational wave in this theory is more well-behaved compared to the scalar field, which typically suffers from shock formation., Comment: 44 pages, 3 figures; v2: references added, typos corrected

In this review, we summarize current understandings of black hole solutions in various braneworld models, including the Arkani-Hamed-Dimopoulos-Dvali model, the RandallSundrum (RS) models, the Karch-Randall (KR) model and the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati model. After illustrating basic properties of each braneworld model, we introduce the bulk/brane correspondence in the RS and KR braneworld models, adding supporting evidence for it. We then summarize the studies on braneworld black hole solutions, which consist of constructing exact or approximate solutions and investigating the phase diagram of solutions. In the study of phase diagram, we will also expound the implications of the bulk/brane correspondence to the braneworld black holes.

We consider a black hole solution whose spatial boundary is a squashed three sphere in Einstein gravity with negative cosmological constant. We solve the Einstein equations numerically and find a warped AdS black hole solution with arbitrary squashing parameter. This solution becomes the ordinary AdS-Schwarzschild solution when the squashing parameter is chosen appropriately. Motivated by this fact, we study N=4 super Yang-Mills theory with zero coupling constant on a squashed three sphere and show that the thermodynamical entropy of this theory roughly agrees with that of the warped AdS black hole up to a factor of 3/4. We also study the confinement/deconfinement transition of the gauge theory. We evaluate the approximate Hawking-Page transition temperature of the warped AdS black hole and find a qualitative agreement between the transition temperatures of the gravity and the gauge theory. These results suggest a duality between the warped AdS solution and N=4 super Yang-Mills theory on a squashed three sphere., 19 pages, 7 figures

We study N =4 super Yang-Mills theories on a three sphere with two kinds of chemical potentials. One is associated with the R-symmetry and the other with the rotational symmetry of S^3 (SO(4) symmetry). These correspond to the charged Kerr-AdS black holes via AdS/CFT. The exact partition functions at zero coupling are computed and the thermodynamical properties are studied. We find a nontrivial gap between the confinement/deconfinement transition line and the boundary of the phase diagram when we include more than four chemical potentials. In the dual gravity, we find such a gap in the phase diagram to study the thermodynamics of the charged Kerr-AdS black hole. This shows that the qualitative phase structures agree between the both sides. We also find that the ratio of the thermodynamical quantities is almost well-known factor 3/4 even at the low temperature., 40 pages, 6 figures, v2: references added, v3: typos corrected and references added

Motion of a particle near a horizon of a spherically symmetric black hole is shown to possess a universal Lyapunov exponent of a chaos provided by its surface gravity. To probe the horizon, we introduce electromagnetic or scalar force to the particle so that it does not fall into the horizon. There appears an unstable maximum of the total potential where the evaluated maximal Lyapunov exponent is found to be independent of the external forces and the particle mass. The Lyapunov exponent is universally given by the surface gravity of the black hole. Unless there are other sources of a chaos, the Lyapunov exponent is subject to an inequality $\lambda \leq 2\pi T_{\rm BH}/\hbar$, which is identical to the bound recently discovered by Maldacena, Shenker and Stanford., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures; v2: references added, numerical plots in Fig. 4 corrected

The Horndeski theory is known as the most general scalar-tensor theory with second-order field equations. In this paper, we explore the bi-scalar extension of the Horndeski theory. Following Horndeski's approach, we determine all the possible terms appearing in the second-order field equations of the bi-scalar-tensor theory. We compare the field equations with those of the generalized multi-Galileons, and confirm that our theory contains new terms that are not included in the latter theory. We also discuss the construction of the Lagrangian leading to our most general field equations., 21 pages

We study the cosmology of bimetric theory with a composite matter coupling. We find two possible branches of background evolution. We investigate the question of stability of cosmological perturbations. For the tensor and vector perturbations, we derive conditions on the absence of ghost and gradient instabilities. For the scalar modes, we obtain conditions for avoiding ghost degrees. In the first branch, we find that one of the scalar modes becomes a ghost at the late stages of the evolution. Conversely, this problem can be avoided in the second branch. However, we also find that the constraint for the second branch prevents the doubly coupled matter fields from being the standard ingredients of cosmology. We thus conclude that a realistic and stable cosmological model requires additional minimally coupled matter fields., Comment: 22 pages

In Lovelock theories, gravity can travel faster or slower than light. The causal structure is determined by the characteristic hypersurfaces. We generalise a recent result of Izumi to prove that any Killing horizon is a characteristic hypersurface for all gravitational degrees of freedom of a Lovelock theory. Hence gravitational signals cannot escape from the region inside such a horizon. We investigate the hyperbolicity of Lovelock theories by determining the characteristic hypersurfaces for various backgrounds. First we consider Ricci flat type N spacetimes. We show that characteristic hypersurfaces are generically all non-null and that Lovelock theories are hyperbolic in any such spacetime. Next we consider static, maximally symmetric black hole solutions of Lovelock theories. Again, characteristic surfaces are generically non-null. For some small black holes, hyperbolicity is violated near the horizon. This implies that the stability of such black holes is not a well-posed problem., 33 pages, v2 added references

We derive a variety of exact black hole solutions in a subclass of Horndeski's scalar-tensor theory possessing shift symmetry, $\phi\to\phi+c$, and reflection symmetry, $\phi\to-\phi$. The theory admits two arbitrary functions of $X:=-(\partial\phi)^2/2$, and our solutions are constructed without specifying the concrete form of the two functions, implying that black hole solutions in specific scalar-tensor theories found in the literature can be extended to a more general class of theories with shift symmetry. Our solutions include a black hole in the presence of an effective cosmological constant, the Nariai spacetime, the Lifshitz black hole, and other nontrivial solutions, all of which exhibit nonconstant scalar-field profile., Comment: 10 pages. v2: Corrected an erroneous statement in the first version. Matches version accepted by PTEP

We derive the cosmological matching conditions for the homogeneous and isotropic background and for linear perturbations in Horndeski's most general second-order scalar-tensor theory. In general relativity, the matching is done in such a way that the extrinsic curvature is continuous across the transition hypersurface. This procedure is generalized so as to incorporate the mixing of scalar and gravity kinetic terms in the field equations of Horndeski's theory. Our matching conditions have a wide range of applications including the galilean genesis and the bounce scenarios, in which stable, null energy condition violating solutions play a central role. We demonstrate how our matching conditions are used in the galilean genesis scenario. In doing so, we extend the previous genesis models and provide a unified description of the theory admitting the solution that starts expanding from the Minkowski spacetime., 11 pages, 1 figure

We argue that Lovelock theories of gravity suffer from shock formation, unlike General Relativity. We consider the propagation of (i) a discontinuity in curvature, and (ii) weak, high frequency, gravitational waves. Such disturbances propagate along characteristic hypersurfaces of a "background" spacetime and their amplitude is governed by a transport equation. In GR the transport equation is linear. In Lovelock theories, it is nonlinear and its solutions can blow up, corresponding to the formation of a shock. We show that this effect is absent in some simple cases e.g. a flat background spacetime, and demonstrate its presence for a plane wave background. We comment on weak cosmic censorship, the evolution of shocks, and the nonlinear stability of Minkowski spacetime, in Lovelock theories., Comment: 43 pages, 5 figures

We study cosmological perturbations in bimetric theory with two fluids each of which is coupled to one of the two metrics. Focusing on a healthy branch of background solutions, we clarify the stability of the cosmological perturbations. For this purpose, we extend the condition for the absence of the so-called Higuchi ghost, and show that the condition is guaranteed to be satisfied on the healthy branch. We also calculate the squared propagation speeds of perturbations and derive the conditions for the absence of the gradient instability. To avoid the gradient instability, we find that the model parameters are weakly constrained., Comment: 16 pp; v2: minor corrections/references added to match the published version

A massless scalar field exhibits an instability at the event horizon of an extreme black hole. We study numerically the nonlinear evolution of this instability for spherically symmetric perturbations of an extreme Reissner-Nordstrom (RN) black hole. We find that generically the endpoint of the instability is a non-extreme RN solution. However, there exist fine-tuned initial perturbations for which the instability never decays. In this case, the perturbed spacetime describes a time-dependent extreme black hole. Such solutions settle down to extreme RN outside, but not on, the event horizon. The event horizon remains smooth but certain observers who cross it at late time experience large gradients there. Our results indicate that these dynamical extreme black holes admit a C^1 extension across an inner (Cauchy) horizon., Comment: 33 pages plus appendices

We propose a multifield extension of (generalized) G inflation, based on covariant multi-Galileons and their generalization preserving second-order field equations. We compute the quadratic action for cosmological perturbations. By comparing the formulas for cosmological perturbations, it is highlighted that multifield Dirac-Born-Infield Galileon inflation is not included in the multifield version of generalized G inflation. Our result indicates that the generalized covariant multi-Galileon theory is not the most general multi-scalar-tensor theory with second-order field equations.

Aretakis has proved that a massless scalar field has an instability at the horizon of an extreme Reissner-Nordstr\"om black hole. We show that a similar instability occurs also for a massive scalar field and for coupled linearized gravitational and electromagnetic perturbations. We present numerical results for the late time behaviour of massless and massive scalar fields in the extreme RN background and show that instabilities are present for initial perturbations supported outside the horizon, e.g.\ an ingoing wavepacket. For a massless scalar we show that the numerical results for the late time behaviour are reproduced by an analytic calculation in the near-horizon geometry. We relate Aretakis' conserved quantities at the future horizon to the Newman-Penrose conserved quantities at future null infinity., Comment: 44 pages, 19 figures

We study the gravitational, electromagnetic and scalar field perturbations on the near-horizon geometries of the even-dimensional extremal Myers-Perry black holes. By dimensional reduction, the perturbation equations are reduced to effective equations of motion in AdS$_2$. We find that some modes in the gravitational perturbations violate the Breitenl\"ohner-Freedman bound in AdS$_2$. This result suggests that the even-dimensional (near-)extremal Myers-Perry black holes are unstable against gravitational perturbations. We also discuss implications of our results to the Kerr-CFT correspondence., Comment: 26 pages; v2: minor typo corrected

We discuss the detectability of gravitational waves with a time dependent mass contribution, by means of the stochastic gravitational wave observations. Such a mass term typically arises in the cosmological solutions of massive gravity theories. We conduct the analysis based on a general quadratic action, and thus the results apply universally to any massive gravity theories in which modification of general relativity appears primarily in the tensor modes. The primary manifestation of the modification in the gravitational wave spectrum is a sharp peak. The position and height of the peak carry information on the present value of the mass term, as well as the duration of the inflationary stage. We also discuss the detectability of such a gravitational wave signal using the future-planned gravitational wave observatories., Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures; v2: Comments added to Sec. III, modifications to Sec. V

We discuss the Hawking temperature of near-equilibrium black holes using a semiclassical analysis. We introduce a useful expansion method for slowly evolving spacetime, and evaluate the Bogoliubov coefficients using the saddle point approximation. For a spacetime whose evolution is sufficiently slow, such as a black hole with slowly changing mass, we find that the temperature is determined by the surface gravity of the past horizon. As an example of applications of these results, we study the Hawking temperature of black holes with null shell accretion in asymptotically flat space and the AdS-Vaidya spacetime. We discuss implications of our results in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence., 13 pages, 7 figures, REVTeX4; published in PRD

We study the fields of spherically symmetric thin shell sources, a.k.a. Dyson spheres, in a {\it fully nonlinear covariant} theory of gravity with the simplest galileon field. We integrate exactly all the field equations once, reducing them to first order nonlinear equations. For the simplest galileon, static solutions come on {\it six} distinct branches. On one, a Dyson sphere surrounds itself with a galileon hair, which far away looks like a hair of any Brans-Dicke field. The hair changes below the Vainshtein scale, where the extra galileon terms dominate the minimal gradients of the field. Their hair looks more like a fuzz, because the galileon terms are suppressed by the derivative of the volume determinant. It shuts off the `hair bunching' over the `angular' 2-sphere. Hence the fuzz remains dilute even close to the source. This is really why the Vainshtein's suppression of the modifications of gravity works close to the source. On the other five branches, the static solutions are all {\it singular} far from the source, and shuttered off from asymptotic infinity. One of them, however, is really the self-accelerating branch, and the singularity is removed by turning on time dependence. We give examples of regulated solutions, where the Dyson sphere explodes outward, and its self-accelerating side is nonsingular. These constructions may open channels for nonperturbative transitions between branches, which need to be addressed further to determine phenomenological viability of multi-branch gravities., 29+1 pages, LaTeX, 2 .pdf figures

In Randall-Sundrum II (RS-II) braneworld model, it has been conjectured according to the AdS/CFT correspondence that brane-localized black hole (BH) larger than the bulk AdS curvature scale $\ell$ cannot be static, and it is dual to a four dimensional BH emitting the Hawking radiation through some quantum fields. In this scenario, the number of the quantum field species is so large that this radiation changes the orbital evolution of a BH binary. We derived the correction to the gravitational waveform phase due to this effect and estimated the upper bounds on $\ell$ by performing Fisher analyses. We found that DECIGO/BBO can put a stronger constraint than the current table-top result by detecting gravitational waves from small mass BH/BH and BH/neutron star (NS) binaries. Furthermore, DECIGO/BBO is expected to detect 10$^5$ BH/NS binaries per year. Taking this advantage, we found that DECIGO/BBO can actually measure $\ell$ down to $\ell=0.33 \mu$m for 5 year observation if we know that binaries are circular a priori. This is about 40 times smaller than the upper bound obtained from the table-top experiment. On the other hand, when we take eccentricities into binary parameters, the detection limit weakens to $\ell=1.5 \mu$m due to strong degeneracies between $\ell$ and eccentricities. We also derived the upper bound on $\ell$ from the expected detection number of extreme mass ratio inspirals (EMRIs) with LISA and BH/NS binaries with DECIGO/BBO, extending the discussion made recently by McWilliams. We found that these less robust constraints are weaker than the ones from phase differences., Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures. Published in PRD, typos corrected, references and footnotes added

In this paper, using the Bondi coordinates, we discuss the angular momentum at null infinity in five dimensions and address the Poincare covariance of the Bondi mass and angular momentum. We also show the angular momentum loss/gain law due to gravitational waves. In four dimensions, the angular momentum at null infinity has the supertranslational ambiguity and then it is known that we cannot construct well-defined angular momentum there. On the other hand, we would stress that we can define angular momentum at null infinity without any ambiguity in higher dimensions. This is because of the non-existence of supertranslations in higher dimensions., 15 pages, published version in JMP

Application of the adS/CFT correspondence to the RS models may predict that there is no static solution for black holes with a radius larger than the bulk curvature scale. When the black hole has an extremal horizon, however, the correspondence suggests that the black hole can stay static. We focus on the effects of cosmological constant on the brane on such extremal brane-localized black holes. We observe that the positive cosmological constant restrict the black hole size on the brane as in ordinary four-dimensional general relativity. The maximum black hole size differs from that in four-dimensional general relativity case due to the non-linear term in the effective Einstein equation. In the negative cosmological constant case, we obtain an implication on the Newton constant in the Karch-Randall model., 12 pages, 8 figures

We study the non-equilibrium condensation process in a holographic superconductor. When the temperature T is smaller than a critical temperature T_c, there are two black hole solutions, the Reissner-Nordstrom-AdS black hole and a black hole with a scalar hair. In the boundary theory, they can be regarded as the supercooled normal phase and the superconducting phase, respectively. We consider perturbations on supercooled Reissner-Nordstrom-AdS black holes and study their non-linear time evolution to know about physical phenomena associated with rapidly-cooled superconductors. We find that, for T, Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures

We discuss the asymptotic structure of null infinity in five dimensional space-time. Since it is known that the conformal infinity is not useful for odd higher dimensions, we shall employ the coordinate based method like the Bondi coordinate firstly introduced in four dimensions. Then we define the null infinity and identify the asymptotic symmetry. We also derive the Bondi mass expression and show its conservation law., Comment: 12 pages. Published version in J.Math.Phys

We analyze the effects of the back reaction due to a conformal field theory (CFT) on a black hole spacetime with negative cosmological constant. We study the geometry numerically obtained by taking into account the energy momentum tensor of CFT approximated by a radiation fluid. We find a sequence of configurations without a horizon in thermal equilibrium (CFT stars), followed by a sequence of configurations with a horizon. We discuss the thermodynamic properties of the system and how back reaction effects alter the space-time structure. We also provide an interpretation of the above sequence of solutions in terms of the AdS/CFT correspondence. The dual five-dimensional description is given by the Karch-Randall model, in which a sequence of five-dimensional floating black holes followed by a sequence of brane localized black holes correspond to the above solutions., 13 pages, 10 figures

To investigate the holography in the Karch-Randall (KR) braneworld model, we construct time-symmetric initial data of black holes floating in the bulk, and compare it with its holographic dual, which is described by four-dimensional self-gravitating quantum field theory in asymptotically AdS_4 spacetime. We also give a definition and an explicit formula of mass in the KR model extending the definition by Abbott and Deser for asymptotically AdS spacetime. We obtain supporting evidence for the holography in the KR model such as good agreements of phase structures and characteristic values between the two theories, and find clues that the Hawking-Page transition of the four-dimensional quantum theory in a microcanonical ensemble is holographically dual to a transition in the bulk black hole configuration., 24 pages, 11 figures

In the aim of shedding a new light on the classical black hole evaporation conjecture stating that a static brane-localized black hole (BH) larger than the bulk curvature scale does not exist in Randall-Sundrum II (RS-II) model, we investigate time-symmetric initial data with a brane-localized apparent horizon (AH) and analyzed its properties. We find that a three-parameter family of such initial data can be constructed by simply placing a brane on a constant time surface of Schwarzschild anti-de Sitter space. By this method, we unambiguously confirm that initial data with an arbitrarily large AH area do exist. We compare the ADM mass and the horizon area of our initial data with that of the black string (BS) solution, and find that any initial data constructed by this method do not have a smaller mass than the BS solution when the horizon area is larger than the size determined by the bulk curvature scale. We further investigate what kind of configuration realizes the minimum mass for the same AH area. The configuration that realizes the smallest mass turns out to be the one close to the BS truncated by a cap. We also demonstrate that the same method applies to construct initial data in (3+1)-dimensional RS-II brane world. In this case an exact solution of a brane-localized BH exists but BS solution does not. Nevertheless, the behavior of the initial data is quite similar in both cases. We find that the known exact solution always has a smaller mass than our initial data with the same horizon area. This result enforces the standard belief that the exact BH solution is the most stable black object in the four-dimensional RS-II model. These results are all consistent with the classical BH evaporation conjecture, but unfortunately it turns out that they do not provide a strong support of it., 14 pages, 9 figures. Typo corrected

To clarify observational consequence of bubble nucleations in inflationary era, we analyse dynamics of a spherical domain wall in an expanding universe. We consider a spherical shell of the domain wall with tension $\sigma$ collapsing in a spherically-symmetric dust universe, which is initially separated into the open Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker universe inside the shell and the Einstein-de Sitter universe outside. The domain wall shell collapses due to the tension, and sweeps the dust fluid. The universe after the collapse becomes inhomogeneous and is described by the Lema\^itre-Tolman-Bondi model. We construct solutions describing this inhomogeneous universe by solving dynamical equations obtained from Israel's junction conditions applied to this system. We find that a black hole forms after the domain wall collapse for any initial condition, and that the black hole mass at the moment of its formation is universally given by $M_{\rm BH}\simeq 17 \sigma/H_{\rm hc}$, where $H_{\rm hc}$ is the Hubble parameter at the time when the shell radius becomes equal to the Hubble radius. We also find that the dust fluid is distributed as $\rho\propto R^{3/2}$ near the central region after the collapse, where $R$ is the area radius. These features would provide observable signatures of a spherical domain wall generated in the early universe., Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, estimate of black hole mass is corrected

A definition of asymptotic flatness at spatial infinity in $d$ dimensions ($d\geq 4$) is given using the conformal completion approach. Then we discuss asymptotic symmetry and conserved quantities. As in four dimensions, in $d$ dimensions we should impose a condition at spatial infinity that the "magnetic" part of the $d$-dimensional Weyl tensor vanishes at faster rate than the "electric" part does, in order to realize the Poincare symmetry as asymptotic symmetry and construct the conserved angular momentum. However, we found that an additional condition should be imposed in $d>4$ dimensions., 10 pages

We discuss mesons in thermalizing gluon backgrounds in the N=2 supersymmetric QCD using the gravity dual. We numerically compute the dynamics of a probe D7-brane in the Vaidya-AdS geometry that corresponds to a D3-brane background thermalizing from zero to finite temperatures by energy injection. In static backgrounds, it has been known that there are two kinds of brane embeddings where the brane intersects the black hole or not. They correspond to the phases with melted or stable mesons. In our dynamical setup, we obtain three cases depending on final temperatures and injection time scales. The brane stays outside of the black hole horizon when the final temperature is low, while it intersects the horizon and settles down to the static equilibrium state when the final temperature is high. Between these two cases, we find the overeager case where the brane dynamically intersects the horizon although the final temperature is not high enough for a static brane to intersect the horizon. The interpretation of this phenomenon in the dual field theory is meson melting due to non-thermal effects caused by rapid energy injection. In addition, we comment on the late time evolution of the brane and a possibility of its reconnection., 42 pages, 23 figures, v2: references added