Nothing really matters

Abstract

We study non-perturbative instabilities of AdS spacetime in General Relativity with a cosmological constant in arbitrary dimensions. In this simple setup we explicitly construct a class of gravitational instantons generalizing Witten's bubble of nothing. We calculate the corresponding Euclidean action and show that its change is finite. The expansion of these bubbles is described by a lower-dimensional de Sitter geometry within a non-compact foliation of the background spacetime. Moreover we discuss the existence of covariantly constant spinors as a possible topological obstruction for such decays to occur. This mechanism is further connected to the stability of supersymmetric vacua in string theory.