On the instability of 3d null singularities

Abstract

String propagation on a three-dimensional Lorentzian string orbifold with a null singularity has been studied by Horowitz and Steif, and more recently by Liu, Moore and Seiberg. We analyze the target space as a classical gravitational background. The singularity becomes spacelike when an arbitrarily small amount of matter is thrown at the singularity. This can be seen directly by studying the null singularity as a limit of the M=0, J=0 BTZ black hole metric.