I will describe recent evidence that anti-de Sitter spacetime is
nonlinearly unstable. Generic small but finite perturbations eventually
form small black holes. There are special solutions, called geons, which
remain nonsingular and do not collapse. I will also describe (weaker)
evidence that black holes in anti-de Sitter spacetime are also unstable.
The endstate may involve a violation of cosmic censorship. It would be
of great interest to check all of these claims using numerical
relativity.
To begin viewing slides, click on the first slide below. (Or, view as pdf.)