Stringy Instability of Topologically Non-Trivial Ads Black Holes and of desitter S-Brane Spacetimes

Abstract

Seiberg and Witten have discussed a specifically "stringy" kind of instability which arises in connection with "large" branes in asymptotically AdS spacetimes. It is easy to see that this instability actually arises in most five-dimensional asymptotically AdS black hole string spacetimes with non-trivial horizon topologies. We point out that this is a more serious problem than it may at first seem, for it cannot be resolved even by taking into account the effect of the branes on the geometry of spacetime. [It is ultimately due to the {\em topology} of spacetime, not its geometry.] Next, assuming the validity of some kind of dS/CFT correspondence, we argue that asymptotically deSitter versions of the Hull-Strominger-Gutperle S-brane spacetimes are also unstable in this "topological" sense, at least in the case where the R-symmetries are preserved. We conjecture that this is due to the unrestrained creation of "late" branes, the spacelike analogue of large branes, at very late cosmological times.