Critical behavior of the black hole/black string transition

Abstract

We numerically construct static localized black holes in five and six spacetime dimensions which are solutions to Einstein’s vacuum field equations with one compact periodic dimension. In particular, we investigate the critical regime in which the poles of the localized black hole are about to merge. A well adapted multi-domain pseudo-spectral scheme provides us with accurate results and enables us to investigate the phase diagram of those localized solutions within the critical regime, which goes far beyond previous results. We find that in this regime the phase diagram possesses a spiral structure adapting to the one recently found for non-uniform black strings. When approaching the common endpoint of both phases, the behavior of physical quantities is described by complex critical exponents giving rise to a discrete scaling symmetry. The numerically obtained values of the critical exponents agree remarkably well with those derived from the double-cone metric.