We describe the construction of new locally asymptotically (A)dS geometries with relevance for the AdS/CFT and dS/CFT correspondences. Our approach is to obtain new solutions by analytically continuing black hole solutions. A basic consideration of the method of continuation indicates that these solutions come in three classes: S-branes, bubbles and anti-bubbles. A generalization to spinning or twisted solutions can yield spacetimes with complicated horizon structures. Interestingly enough, several of these spacetimes are nonsingular.

No abstract

To capture important physical properties of a spacetime we construct a new diagram, the card diagram, which accurately draws generalized Weyl spacetimes in arbitrary dimensions by encoding their global spacetime structure, singularities, horizons, and some aspects of causal structure including null infinity. Card diagrams draw only non-trivial directions providing a clearer picture of the geometric features of spacetimes as compared to Penrose diagrams, and can change continuously as a function of the geometric parameters. One of our main results is to describe how Weyl rods are traversable horizons and the entirety of the spacetime can be mapped out. We review Weyl techniques and as examples we systematically discuss properties of a variety of solutions including Kerr-Newman black holes, black rings, expanding bubbles, and recent spacelike-brane solutions. Families of solutions will share qualitatively similar cards. In addition we show how card diagrams not only capture information about a geometry but also its analytic continuations by providing a geometric picture of analytic continuation. Weyl techniques are generalized to higher dimensional charged solutions and applied to generate perturbations of bubble and S-brane solutions by Israel-Khan rods. This paper is a condensed and simplified presentation of the card diagrams in hep-th/0409070.

No abstract

We discover that a class of bubbles of nothing are embedded as time dependent scaling limits of previous spacelike-brane solutions. With the right initial conditions, a near-bubble solution can relax its expansion and open the compact circle. Thermodynamics of the new class of solutions is discussed and the relationships between brane/flux transitions, tachyon condensation and imaginary D-branes are outlined. Finally, a related class of simultaneous connected S-branes are also examined.