Much Ado About Nothing

Abstract

We describe the semiclassical decay of a class of orbifolds of AdS space via a bubble of nothing. The bounce is the small Euclidean AdS-Schwarzschild solution. The negative cosmological constant introduces subtle features in the conservation of energy during the decay. A near-horizon limit of D3-branes in the Milne orbifold spacetime gives rise to our false vacuum. Conversely, a focusing limit in the latter produces flat space compactified on a circle. The dual field theory description involves a novel analytic continuation of the thermal partition function of Yang-Mills theory on a three-sphere times a circle.