Scalar field breathers on anti-de Sitter background

Abstract

We study spatially localized, time-periodic solutions (breathers) of scalar field theories with various self-interacting potentials on Anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetimes in $D$ dimensions. A detailed numerical study of spherically symmetric configurations in $D=3$ dimensions is carried out, revealing a rich and complex structure of the phase-space (bifurcations, resonances). Scalar breather solutions form one-parameter families parametrized by their amplitude, $\varepsilon$, while their frequency, $\omega=\omega(\varepsilon)$, is a function of the amplitude. The scalar breathers on AdS we find have a small amplitude limit, tending to the eigenfunctions of the linear Klein-Gordon operator on AdS. Importantly most of these breathers appear to be generically stable under time evolution.