Phase Transitions and Black Hole Stability in Gauged N = 8 Supergravity

Abstract

It is well known that there is a region of parameter space where all purely electric, static, dilatonic black holes are unstable within the STU models of maximal supergravity. We show that, for planar black holes, it is possible to complete the thermal phase space with AdS solitons, in such a way that the instability of the black holes signals the onset of confinement in the dual field theory. The analysis is done for the $D=4$ STU model of maximal gauged supergravity which naturally uplift to M-theory on the $S^7$.