Generic Cosmic-Censorship Violation in anti–de Sitter Space

We consider (four-dimensional) gravity coupled to a scalar field with potential $V(\varphi )$. 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 cosmic censorship in asymptotically flat spacetimes, but we do not have definite results.

Figure 1

A potential $V(\varphi )$ that satisfies the positive energy theorem for solutions that asymptotically approach the local (AdS) minimum at ${\varphi }_1$, but which violates cosmic censorship.

Figure 2

The lowest mass configuration $\tilde{\varphi }(y)$, subject to the boundary conditions discussed in the text, for the potential shown in Fig. 1.