We consider “bubbles of nothing” constructed by analytically continuing black hole solutions in anti–de Sitter space. These provide interesting examples of smooth time-dependent backgrounds which can be studied through the AdS/CFT correspondence. Our examples include bubbles constructed from Schwarzschild-AdS, Kerr-AdS and Reissner-Nordström AdS. The Schwarzschild bubble is dual to Yang-Mills theory on three-dimensional de Sitter space times a circle. We construct the boundary stress tensor of the bubble spacetime and relate it to the properties of field theory on de Sitter space.

• Received 10 June 2002

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.66.086002