Numerical Boson Stars with a Single Killing Vector I: the D ≥ 5 Case

Sean Stotyn,1, ∗ C. Danielle Leonard,2, † Marius Oltean,3, ‡

Laura J. Henderson,4, § and Robert B. Mann4, ¶
1 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, V6T 1Z1
2 Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, OX1 3RH
3 Department of Physics, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3A 2T8
4 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo,
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 3G1
arXiv:1307.8159v2 [hep-th] 13 Dec 2013

(Dated: October 20, 2018)

Abstract
D−1
We numerically construct asymptotically anti-de Sitter boson star solutions using a minimally coupled 2 -

tuplet complex scalar field in D = 5, 7, 9, 11 dimensions. The metric admits multiple Killing vector fields in
general, however the scalar fields are only invariant under a particular combination, leading to such boson star
solutions possessing just a single helical Killing symmetry. These boson stars form a one parameter family
of solutions, which can be parametrized by the energy density at their center. As the central energy density
tends to infinity, the angular velocity, mass, and angular momentum of the boson star exhibit damped harmonic
oscillations about finite central values, while the Kretschmann invariant diverges, signaling the formation of a
black hole in this limit.

∗
Electronic address: sstotyn@phas.ubc.ca
†
Electronic address: danielle.leonard@astro.ox.ac.uk
‡
Electronic address: moltean@physics.mcgill.ca
§
Electronic address: l7hender@uwaterloo.ca
¶
Electronic address: rbmann@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca

1
1. INTRODUCTION

Boson stars are smooth, horizonless geometries composed of self-interacting and self-gravitating
bosonic matter[1, 2]. They describe localized bundles of field energy that typically do not display a
sharp edge, like those of ordinary stars or neutron stars. It is currently unknown whether boson stars
are physically realized in our universe, but they have nevertheless maintained a steady level of interest
both from a theoretical gravitational point of view and from an astrophysical point of view. In the
latter context, boson stars in four dimensional asymptotically flat space-time have been put forth as
candidates for dark matter halos that may help explain galaxy rotation curves – see Ref [3] for a review.
While boson stars in an excited state typically produce a more physically realistic, flatter rotation curve
than boson stars in the ground state, such excited states are known to decay to the ground state unless
the boson stars are in rather particular mixed states [4]. If not coupled to a Maxwell field, they also
provide dark alternatives to astrophysical black hole candidates, which could potentially be discerned
by gravitational wave astronomy [5, 6]. On the purely theoretical side, boson stars in asymptotically
anti-de Sitter (AdS) space-times are believed to play important roles in holographic gauge theories
through the AdS/CFT correspondence. There is much work yet to be done in this respect, but some
progress has been made, at least in mapping out the possible boson star solutions. For a detailed review
of boson stars and their various applications, we refer the reader to Ref [7].
There are a wide range of boson star solutions, which can be composed of a complex scalar field with
mass[8, 9] or without[10, 11], with self-interactions[12, 13], with gauge charges[14, 15], with rotation[10,
11], with de Sitter[16, 17], flat[12, 18], or anti-de Sitter[9, 19] boundary conditions, etc. Despite this
diversity, boson stars all have one important feature in common: since they are horizonless, they are
zero temperature objects that describe finite energy excitations above the vacuum state. The stability
of these objects is of central interest if AdS boundary conditions are present. If they are perturbatively
unstable to the formation of a black hole, then they are themselves of little interest gravitationally.
If they are perturbatively stable then their non-linear stability determines whether the corresponding
state in the holographic dual CFT thermalizes and on what time-scale. Due to the evidence of a
gravitational turbulent instability in asymptotically AdS space-times [20–23], one might expect all AdS
boson stars to be non-linearly unstable to black hole formation. However, recently in [24] a wide range
of initial data were discovered such that boson stars are immune to the turbulent instability, leading
on the gauge theory side to a family of strongly coupled CFT states that do not thermalize in finite
time. Furthermore, the analysis of [25] suggests that the turbulent instability of global AdS is due to
the high level of symmetry: the normal mode frequencies are all integer multiples of the AdS frequency,
leading to a large number of resonances responsible for the nonlinear instability. Solutions possessing
less symmetry, such as boson stars, are not plagued by this problem and tend to be nonlinearly stable

2
as a result. Although a clear mapping between boson star properties and physically observed states
in CFTs is currently unknown, it is hoped that a better understanding of the gravitational aspects of
boson stars will lead to insights into physically realizable systems.
Most of the boson star solutions constructed to date have relied on a relatively high level of symmetry
to yield equations that can feasibly be solved numerically. Indeed, space-time symmetries often play an
indispensable role in constructing analytic solutions to the Einstein equations. Such symmetries readily
manifest in the familiar form of Killing vector fields, which generate the space-time’s isometry group.
Furthermore, various theorems show that Killing symmetries are ubiquitous under physically reasonable
assumptions. For instance, the rigidity theorem states that if a space-time is stationary, it must also
possess an axis of symmetry, leading to a minimum of 2 Killing symmetries[26–28]. Concordantly, it
has become an almost universal feature of exact solutions to Einstein gravity to admit multiple Killing
fields.
However, this need not necessarily be the case: for example, the gravitational field outside of a
generic matter source may only have approximate Killing symmetries, or none at all. Even in more
idealized settings, there is considerable interest in exact solutions which possess only a single Killing
field. For instance, due to a judicious choice of metric and scalar field ansatz first put forth in [29],
spinning boson star solutions exhibiting a single helical Killing vector have been found in 5 dimensions
with anti-de Sitter (AdS) boundary conditions [10]; the scalar field has a harmonic time dependence that
breaks the continuous rotational symmetry. In [11] these techniques were used to construct analogous
boson stars in odd dimensions D ≥ 5 in the perturbative regime where energy and angular momentum
are low. However full numerical results away from the perturbative regime have yet only been presented
in the 5 dimensional treatment in [10]. In this paper, we complete this analysis and obtain numerical
solutions for asymptotically AdS boson stars with a single Killing field in D = 7, 9, 11 dimensions; this
one parameter family of solutions is parameterized by the central energy density of the boson star.
This central energy density is unbounded above and in the limit that it tends to infinity, the mass,
angular momentum, and angular velocity all tend to finite values, while the Kretschmann scalar at
the centre diverges. Analogous boson stars in D = 3 have qualitatively distinct features and require
separate considerations, even in the perturbative regime [30]; the numerical construction of these lower
dimensional boson star solutions is discussed in a separate paper [31]. We focus on odd-dimensions
since there is a useful ansatz for the scalar fields (given in section 2) that allows the full solutions to
have only a single Killing vector, but yields a stress-energy with the same symmetries as the metric.
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: in section 2 we present our ansatz and extract
the ordinary differential equations (ODEs) and constraint equations we must solve. In section 3, we
discuss the boundary conditions and the physical properties of our boson stars. In section 4 we describe

3
our numerical methods. In section 5 we present and discuss our results, and in section 6 we provide
some concluding remarks.

2. SETUP

We begin with D = n+2 dimensional Einstein gravity with negative cosmological constant minimally
n+1
coupled to an 2 -tuplet complex scalar field
ˆ
√
 
1 D n(n + 1) 
~
2
S= d x −g R + − 2 ∇Π
  (2.1)
16π `2

where we take the usual convention Λ = − n(n+1)

2`2
with AdS length ` and restrict attention to n =
n(n+1) ~ = 0,
3, 5, 7, 9. The equations of motion resulting from this action are Gab − 2`2
gab = Tab and ∇2 Π
where the stress tensor of the scalar field is given by
   
~ ∗ ∂b Π
Tab = ∂a Π ~ + ∂a Π∂ ~ ∗ − gab ∂c Π∂
~ bΠ ~∗ .
~ cΠ (2.2)

We take the following ansätze for the metric and scalar field

dr2
 
2 2 2 i

2 i j
ds = −f (r)g(r)dt + + r h(r) dχ + Ai dx − Ω(r)dt + gij dx dx (2.3)
f (r)

n+1
Πi = Π(r)e−iωt zi , i = 1... (2.4)
2
X
where zi are complex coordinates such that dzi dz̄i is the metric of a unit n−sphere. An explicit
i
and convenient choice for the zi is

 Y n−1
ei(χ+φi ) cos θi sin θj ,


 i = 1...

 2
j<i

zi = n−1 (2.5)

 Y2
 iχ n+1



 e sin θj , i= 2
j=1
X
in which case dzi dz̄i = (dχ + Ai dxi )2 + gij dxi dxj is the Hopf fibration of the unit n−sphere where
i

n−1  
2
X Y
Ai dxi = cos2 θi  sin2 θj  dφi (2.6)
i=1 j<i

n−1
and gij is the metric on a unit complex projective space CP 2 . In these coordinates, χ and the φi all
have period 2π while the θi take value in the range [0, π2 ].
The form of the scalar fields is crucial to this construction and was first considered in [29]: it is
n+1
clear from Eq. (2.4) that the scalar fields can be viewed as coordinates on C 2 . For each value of r,

4
~ traces out a round n-sphere with a time-varying but otherwise constant phase. On the other hand,
Π
constant r surfaces in the metric (2.3) correspond to squashed rotating n-spheres. The stress tensor
has the same symmetries as the metric (2.3) since the first term is the pull-back of the round metric of
the n-sphere and the second term is proportional to gab .
Although the matter stress tensor has the same symmetries as the metric, the scalar fields themselves
n−1
do not. Indeed, the metric (2.3) is invariant under ∂t , ∂χ as well as the rotations of CP 2 while the
scalar field (2.4) is only invariant under the combination

K = ∂t + ω∂χ . (2.7)

Therefore, any solution with non-trivial scalar field will only be invariant under the single Killing vector
field given by (2.7).
The equations of motion yield the following system of coupled second order ODEs:

6f 0 rf 0 f 4h0 n2 − 1 n2 − 1 8Π0 Π 4Π2 (ω − Ω)2

 
00
f − − +Ξ + + + + +
fr 6 6 r r2 `2 r fg
2

(n−1)
 (2.8)
8Ξ2 4Π 1 + 2 h 2(n − 3)Ξ
− 2 − 2
− = 0,
fr hr r2

√
0
n−1 (n−1) 2
!
4Ξ g 0 1 − Π2
 
Ξr 2h 2 h 3(n + 1) (n − 3)Ξ
g 00 − g 0 + − − 4g n+1 √ + + −
fr g r fr 2 h f hr2 2f `2 2f r2
(2.9)
8Π2 (ω − Ω)2 hr2 Ω02
− − = 0,
f2 f

h0 2h0 f rh0 h2 r2 Ω02 4(1 − h)

   
00 2 (n + 1)
h + − Ξ+ + + Π + h = 0, (2.10)
r fr 2h fg f r2 2

4Π2 f 0 2h0 2Ξ 2n + 1
 
00
Ω + (ω − Ω) + Ω0 + + + = 0, (2.11)
f hr2 f h fr r

2Π0 Π(ω − Ω)2 1 + (n − 1)h Π
 
00 f
Π − Ξ− + − = 0, (2.12)
fr 2 f 2g f hr2
(n+1)r2
where Ξ = h + Π2 − n+1
2 − 2`2
and a 0 denotes differentiation with respect to r.
In addition to these second order ODEs, the Einstein equations further impose two first order ODEs
in the form of constraint equations, C1 = 0 and C2 = 0. Explicitly, these are

(f 2 ghr2(n−1) )0
C1 = + 4ghΞ, (2.13)
f r2n−3

(n−1) 2
Π2 (ω − Ω)2 02 r2 hΩ02 Ξ(rn+1 h)0 (hf )0 h0 n(f hrn−1 )0 2 h − Π2 n+1
C2 = + Π − + + + + + . (2.14)
f 2g 4f g f hrn+2 4f h2 2f hrn f hr2 2f `2

5
Furthermore, under the flow of the equations of motion above, these constraint equations obey

C10 = F1 (r)C1 , (2.15)

C20 = F2 (r)C1 + F3 (r)C2 , (2.16)

for some functions F1 , F2 , F3 that depend on the dimensionality of the space-time. The explicit form
of these functions is neither important nor illuminating, but what is important is that the derivatives
of the constraints are proportional to the constraints themselves.

3. BOUNDARY CONDITIONS AND PHYSICAL CHARGES

In order to solve the equations of motion, we need to impose boundary conditions at the boson star
origin, as well as asymptotically. In this section we present these boundary conditions and we write
the asymptotic charges in terms of them.

3.1. Boundary Conditions at the Origin

The geometry must be smooth and horizonless, which means that all metric functions must be
regular at the origin. Furthermore, due to the slow physical rotation of points as r → 0, surfaces of
constant t in the vicinity of the origin ought to be described by round n-spheres with r being the proper
radial distance. To find the boundary condition on Π, we multiply (2.12) by r2 and note that Π must
vanish at the origin in order to yield consistent equations of motion. Thus, the boundary conditions at
the origin take the form

f |r→0 = 1 + O(r2 ), g|r→0 = g(0) + O(r), h|r→0 = 1 + O(r2 ),

r (3.1)
Ω|r→0 = Ω(0) + O(r), Π|r→0 = q0 + O(r2 ),
`
for all n, where q0 is a dimensionless parameter such that the energy density of the scalar field, T 00 , at
the origin is proportional to q02 . In fact, q0 uniquely parameterizes the one-parameter family of boson
star solutions in each dimension. Formally, it is defined by q0 ≡ `Π0 (0).

3.2. Asymptotic Boundary Conditions

In order to simplify the asymptotic boundary conditions, we first make note of a residual gauge
freedom. It is straightforward to show that the transformation

χ = χ̃ + λt, Ω(r) = Ω̃(r) + λ, ω = ω̃ + λ (3.2)

6
for some arbitrary constant λ, leaves both the metric (2.3) and scalar field (2.4) unchanged. We find
it convenient in our numerical analysis to set λ = ω so that we can set ω̃ = 0: in this frame, the
coordinates are rigidly rotating asymptotically so that Ω̃(r) → −ω as r → ∞. In what follows, we use
χ̃, Ω̃(r), and ω but we drop the tildes for notational convenience.
In the r → ∞ limit the boundary conditions for the boson star will asymptote to AdS with corrections
for mass and angular momentum, which determine the metric functions up to constants Cf , Ch , and CΩ .
The boundary condition on the scalar field is set by requiring Π to be normalizable, which means it
must decay like r−(n+1) . Explicitly, the asymptotic boundary conditions are given by
r2 Cf `n−1 Ch `n+1
f |r→∞ = 2
+ 1 + n−1
+ O(r−n ), g|r→∞ = 1 − n+1 + O(r−(n+2) ),
` r r
Ch ` n+1 CΩ `n
h|r→∞ = 1 + n+1 + O(r−(n+2) ), Ω|r→∞ = −ω + n+1 + O(r−(n+2) ), (3.3)
r r
`n+1
Π|r→∞ = n+1 + O(r−(n+2) ),
r
where  is a dimensionless measure of the amplitude of the scalar field at infinity. A perturbative
analysis of this problem [11] indicates that  uniquely parameterizes the boson star solutions when the
energy and angular momentum are low; however in the non-perturbative regime it does not, as will be
explicitly demonstrated in section 5.

3.3. Physical Charges

As we have seen, these boson stars are invariant under the single Killing field (2.7), that is, a
linear combination of ∂t and ∂χ . However, the scalar field vanishes at infinity with sufficient fall-off
to imply that ∂t and ∂χ are each asymptotic Killing fields (the metric alone being invariant under
them). Thus they define conserved charges, which can be computed via the Astekhar-Das formalism
[32, 33]; in particular, ∂t and ∂χ are readily associated with a conserved energy and angular momentum,
respectively. For details on how these charges are defined and computed, we refer the reader to Ref
[11] and here simply state the result:
n−1
(n + 1)π 2 `n−1

M= n+1

(n + 1)Ch − nCf , (3.4)
16 2 !
n−1
(n + 1)2 π 2 `n CΩ
J= . (3.5)
16 n+1


2 !
Here, Cf , Ch , and CΩ are the constants appearing in the asymptotic boundary conditions (3.3).
The existence of these asymptotic Killing symmetries also guarantees that the boson stars satisfy
the first law of thermodynamics. They have vanishing temperature and entropy, so the first law takes
the form

dM = ωdJ. (3.6)

7
The fact that these boson stars satisfy the first law is an important numerical tool. Indeed one of the
primary cross-checks on the validity of our numerical methods discussed below is an explicit verification
that the first law holds to at least one part in 106 .

4. NUMERICAL CONSTRUCTION

To numerically construct boson star solutions, we used a relaxation method on a Chebyshev grid
with the metric and scalar field functions approximated by Chebyshev polynomials. A detailed review
of approximating analytic functions by Chebyshev polynomials as well as the Chebyshev relaxation
procedure can be found in [34].
In the case under consideration here there are 5 functions {f (r), g(r), h(r), Ω(r), Π(r)} defined over
the domain r ∈ [0, ∞). To employ the Chebyshev relaxation procedure, we need to compactify the
domain, which we do by introducing the new coordinate, y, defined by

r2
y= . (4.1)
r2 + `2

Note that since r takes value in the range [0, ∞), y takes value in the range [0, 1]. In terms of the
Chebyshev grid points xk = cos kπ th Chebyshev


N , k = 0, ..., N , defined as the extrema of the N
xk +1
polynomial TN (x) over the range [−1, 1], we define our grid by the simple transformation yk ≡ 2 .

To obtain a set of analytic functions, we first extract the singular behavior from each and introduce
auxiliary functions with the boundary conditions (3.1) and (3.3) in mind. In terms of the coordinate
y, this leads to

y n−1
f (y) = + 1 + (1 − y) 2 qf (y), (4.2)
1−y
n+1
g(y) = 1 + (1 − y) 2 qg (y), (4.3)
n+1
h(y) = 1 + (1 − y) 2 qh (y), (4.4)
qΩ (y)
Ω(y) = , (4.5)
`
√ n+1
Π(y) = y(1 − y) 2 qΠ (y). (4.6)

The set of functions {qf , qg , qh , qΩ , qΠ } are analytic over the range y ∈ [0, 1]; in the remaining discussion
the coordinate y will be used, unless otherwise stated. In particular, a prime 0 will denote a derivative
with respect to y.
To find the boundary conditions on the q functions, we Taylor expand the equations of motion (2.8)–
(2.11) and the constraint equations (2.13) and (2.14) around the two boundary points, y0 = 0, 1 and
require them to vanish order by order in (y − y0 ). This leads to the following nontrivial relationships

8
between the various functions and their first derivatives: at y0 = 0

n+1 3
2
qg0 (0) − qg (0) − qh0 (0) 1 + qg (0) − 1 + qg (0) q02 = 0,


qf (0) = 0, (4.7)
2 n n
0 2 2
qh (0) = 0, qΩ (0) − q qΩ (0) = 0, qΠ (0) − q0 = 0, (4.8)
n+3 0

and at y0 = 1

n−1
qf0 (1) + qf (1) + qh (1) = 0, qg (1) + qh (1) = 0, 0
qΩ (1) = 0, (4.9)
2
n+1 1
qh0 (1) + 0
(n + 2)2 − qΩ (1)2 qΠ (1) = 0.


qh (1) = 0, qΠ (1) + (4.10)
2 2(n + 3)

Note that since the constraint equations (2.13) and (2.14) are explicitly satisfied at the boundary
points by these boundary conditions, the derivatives of the constraints, (2.15) and (2.16), are also
satisfied, meaning that the constraints are guaranteed to be satisfied over the whole domain.
To solve the equations of motion, we approximated each of the analytic q-functions by an order N
expansion in terms of Chebyshev polynomials, as described in [34]. Next, this expansion was inserted
into the equations of motion at each of the N −1 interior Chebyshev grid points (excluding the boundary
points y = 0, 1). At the two boundary points, the Chebyshev expansions were inserted into the boundary
conditions (4.7)–(4.10). The equations of motion and boundary conditions then became a system of
non-linear algebraic equations for the spectral coefficients of the Chebyshev approximations. A Newton-
Raphson method was then employed by linearizing the equations of motion with respect to the spectral
coefficients.
The initial seed solution at q0 = 0.01 was obtained using the perturbative results in [11], while
subsequent solutions used the previously generated solution as a seed with a step size of ∆q0 = 0.01. In
all cases, convergence to a solution occurred after 5 iterations, where convergence was determined by
the changes to the spectral coefficients being the same order of magnitude for 2 subsequent iterations;
typically at convergence these changes are on the order of 10−30 or smaller.
The fact that Chebyshev approximations have exponential convergence[34] leads to a number of
checks on the validity of the solution generated by this method. First of all, since the Chebyshev
polynomials are all of order 1, and the j th spectral coefficient is approximately Cj ≈ C0 e−kj for some
constant k that depends on the approximated function, the expansion at any point obeys the inequality
N
X ˆ N
q≤ C0 e−kj ∼ C0 e−kj dj. (4.11)
j=0 0

A rough estimate of the error of the approximation is then given by

ˆ ∞
C0 e−kN
error ≈ C0 e−kj dj = (4.12)
N k

9
where the term in the numerator is the N th spectral coefficient, CN . Therefore, an order of magnitude
estimate of the percent-error in the Chebyshev expansion is simply given by

CN
% error ≈ , (4.13)
C0

which is easily computable by inspection of the output coefficients of an iteration. Indeed, ensuring
this quantity maintained a value below 10−8 was one of the criteria used to determine whether the
Chebyshev grid used was sufficiently dense.
Similarly, because of the exponential convergence of the spectral coefficients, a plot of log |Cj | vs j
should be approximately a straight line with a negative slope −k. This property was used extensively
to determine whether there was a sufficient number of grid points or, equally as important, a sufficient
amount of digit precision in the calculations. Since the spectral coefficients decrease exponentially, after
a certain point, j = n, the digit precision of the calculations, denoted Prec, cannot resolve the difference
between spectral coefficients: the remaining coefficients Cj for j = n, ..., N are then numerical noise. To
overcome this obstacle, we always worked with Prec & N and found that plots of log |Cj | vs j behaved
as expected.
Unfortunately, as q0 increases, this becomes computationally quite expensive and time intensive.
When q0 is sufficiently small, the curvature scale is small everywhere and a sparse Chebyshev grid
of N ∼ 20 suffices to solve the equations of motion. As q0 begins to rise, both N and Prec need
to correspondingly increase to resolve the curvature, with the time for each iteration being at least
quadratic in both. We found that we typically reached the point of diminishing returns at approximately
N = 100, which was the upper limit used to generate the results of the following section.
Finally, we note that the above considerations are not always sufficient to determine whether the
generated solutions are viable. To determine this, we imposed that the first law of thermodynamics
must be satisfied to one part in 106 . We found that our code would continue to generate solutions
well beyond this limit on the first law if we blindly pushed it forward. However, if we evaluated the
equations of motion for such spurious solutions at points in-between the Chebyshev grid points, we
found that they were indeed not satisfied within the required tolerance, whereas they were satisfied for
solutions obeying the first law bound. This was primarily how we decided when to increase the grid
density and digit precision from one solution to the next.
Representative plots of the metric functions and scalar field function constructed by the above
numerical methods are plotted in figure 3 in appendix A: these plots are for D = 5 and q0 = 5.0, although
the generic features of the plots are found to change very little with varying dimension or varying q0 .
It is clear that all of these functions have their expected behaviours and are free from singularities,
except for f (y) which diverges as y → 1 as one expects due to the AdS boundary conditions.

10
5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

With confidence in the validity of our generated solutions assured by the methods detailed above,
we can now present the results. Of course, the physically interesting data for these boson stars amount
to their physical properties, all of which can be written explicitly in terms of the boundary values of
the analytic q functions. For instance, the Kretschmann invariant, K = Rabcd Rabcd , at the centre of
the boson star is given by
 
2 (n + 1) 3 (n − 1) (n + 3) 0 2 2 4 4
Kn = (n + 2) + qh (0) − 4q0 + q0 , (5.1)
`4 n n

while the thermodynamic quantities take the form [32, 33]

n−1
π 2 `n−1

M= n−1

(n + 1)qh (1) − nqf (1) , (5.2)
8 2 !
n+1 n−1
(−1) 2 π 2 `n ( n+1 )
J= 2 qΩ 2 (1), (5.3)
n−1



4 2 !

ω = − qΩ (1). (5.4)

as can be shown using equations (3.4) and (4.2 – 4.6). Similarly, the perturbative parameter  used in
[11] is given by

 = qΠ (1). (5.5)

Given these quantities, we present here the results for n = 3, 5, 7, 9, where we include n = 3 both for
completeness, and to demonstrate that we reproduce the existing results of [10].

In all dimensions we find behaviour that is qualitatively similar to that which was found in [10] for
n = 3. In figure 1, we plot mass, M , angular momentum, J, angular velocity, ω, and asymptotic scalar
field amplitude, , as functions of q0 , which can be seen to uniquely parameterize the family of boson
stars in each dimension.
We find numerically that each of these quantities displays damped harmonic oscillations as q0 in-
creases, with the amplitude of the oscillation decreasing as the dimension increases. Furthermore, as
q0 tends toward infinity, these quantities all asymptote to finite central values that depend on the
dimension.
The damped oscillations have interesting consequences. For instance, the maxima of the M vs q0
graph represent instabilities in the boson stars: adding a small but finite perturbation with energy
δM will necessarily force the solution off the family of boson stars, likely forming a (potentially hairy)
black hole as a result. It is tantalizing to conjecture that this effect may be intimately tied to the
turbulent instability in AdS spaces. Recall that AdS is non-perturbatively unstable to forming a black

11
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æ
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0.0
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4 æ
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0 2 4 6 8 0 2 4 6 8
æ

q0 q0 æ
æ

(c) ω vs q0 ; inset is a close-up of the minima for n = 7, 9. (d)  vs q0 ; inset is a close-up of the maximum for n = 9.

Figure 1: The boson star mass (a), angular momentum (b), angular frequency (c), and perturbative parameter 
(d) plotted against the parameter q0 = `Π0 (0). In each dimension, these quantities all display damped harmonic
oscillations and asymptote to finite values as q0 → ∞.

hole because of the large number of resonant frequencies coming from the normal modes being integer
multiples of the AdS frequency[25]. Perhaps similar normal mode resonances are occurring at the
boson star mass maxima, leading to non-perturbative instabilities toward black hole formation at these
particular values of q0 . From the holographic dual point of view, this would imply that generally the
strongly coupled dual CFT states would not thermalize, except at particular points in parameter space
corresponding to an infinite tower of resonances.
The interpretation of the mass minima is less straightforward, although these points are pertur-
batively unstable in parameter space in the sense that a small perturbation could push the solution
either to the left or the right along the family of boson stars. The holographic dual interpretation is
similarly obscured due to a lack of a map between the gravitational degrees of freedom and those in the
CFT for these objects. Nevertheless, these minimum mass states still represent CFT states that never
thermalize since small but finite perturbations keep the solution within the family of boson stars. That

12
being said, from the perturbative results of [11] we know that in the perturbative regime (i.e. in the
vicinity of the first minimum located at q0 = 0) the boson stars are perturbatively joined to small hairy
black holes. This is presumably because the geometry of small boson stars is still sufficiently close to
AdS that approximate resonances still exist in the normal modes, causing the instability. It is far from
obvious whether the subsequent mass minima have similar behaviour, like the mass maxima do. We
leave this, and other issues of stability, as an open question for future consideration.
In the perturbative regime of Ref. [11], the parameter  uniquely determined the boson star solutions.
In the full numerical treatment this is no longer the case, as can be seen in figure 2. The damped
oscillations with respect to q0 seen in figure 1 show up as damped spirals with respect to  in figure 2,
with the centre of the spirals corresponding to the asymptotic values attained as q0 → ∞. Furthermore,
plots of the Kretschmann scalar, K, against  shows that the curvature at the centre of the boson star is
quickly diverging as q0 increases. In the limit q0 → ∞, the boson star develops a curvature singularity
and hence collapses to form a black hole. We note, however, that as q0 increases, the family of solutions
is spiralling tighter and tighter around the asymptotic black hole values and the boson star will become
non-perturbatively unstable to forming a black hole before the limit q0 → ∞ is reached. This can also
be seen in figure 1 by the fact that the M vs q0 graphs asymptote to horizontal lines in all dimensions,
meaning that adding a small but finite perturbation will necessarily force the solution off the boson
star branch, leading to the formation of a black hole.
Finally, we note in figure 2(d) that plots of M vs J form jagged zig-zags in each dimension. This
is a direct consequence of the first law of thermodynamics, combined with the boson stars being a one
parameter family of solutions. Rewriting the first law as

dM dJ
=ω (5.6)
dq0 dq0

demonstrates that the extrema of the M vs q0 and the J vs q0 graphs of figure 1 must occur at the
same value of q0 in a given dimension. Such points represent the cusps of figure 2(d), while the slopes
of the zigs and zags represent the value of ω by virtue of (5.6). As the space-time dimension increases,
the amplitude of oscillation for ω decreases, meaning that the zig-zags of figure 2(d) become more and
more collinear as can be seen by comparing n = 3, 5, 7, 9. Lastly, since the amplitudes of oscillation for
M and J decrease with increasing q0 , the amplitude of the M vs J zig-zags decrease, as can be clearly
seen for n = 3, 5 in figure 2(d).

6. CONCLUSIONS

Using a relaxation procedure on a Chebyshev grid to solve the equations of motion, we have numeri-
cally obtained asymptotically AdS boson star solutions with only one Killing field in all odd space-time

13
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(c) ω vs ; inset is a close-up of the end of the n = 9 line. (d) M vs J; inset is a close-up of the end of the n = 7, 9
lines.

Figure 2: The boson star mass (a), angular momentum (b), and angular frequency (c) plotted against the
perturbative parameter  with the perturbative results from [11] plotted as dashed lines. In the non-perturbative
regime,  no longer uniquely parameterizes the boson star family. The spiral behavior of (a), (b), and (c)
manifests as a jagged zig-zag in plot (d) of M vs J. This is a consequence of the first law. Note that in plot
(d) the perturbative results of [11] are not included; each point is a solution at a particular value of q0 and these
points become increasingly dense as q0 increases.

dimensions of interest in string theory, i.e. up to D = 11.1 Previously, these solutions had only been
produced perturbatively in D = 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and numerically in D = 5. Our results reveal that the
behaviour of boson stars in 7, 9 and 11 dimensions is qualitatively very similar to their 5-dimensional
counterparts originally found in [10]. In particular, their various properties (M , J, ω, and ) undergo
damped harmonic oscillations about finite critical values as the central energy density is increased.
Accordingly, we see that the amplitude of these oscilations is lower in higher space-time dimension.
Since the publication of Ref. [10] a number of developments in the non-linear (in)stability of asymp-

1
The full numerical boson star solution in D = 3 can be found separately in Ref. [31] due to its significantly different
behaviour than its higher dimensional counterparts presented here.

14
totically AdS space-times have been made. For instance, it was argued in [20] that global AdS is
non-perturbatively unstable to the formation of a black hole; the heuristic idea is that the reflecting
boundary conditions of AdS means that eventually the finite energy perturbations will come together
in such a way that the energy is sufficiently concentrated to form a black hole. In light of this heuristic
picture, it seems plausible that any asymptotically AdS space-time will be non-perturbatively unstable
to the formation of a black hole. However, it was then discovered in [25] that this instability is really
due to the high level of symmetry present in global AdS, since the normal mode frequencies are all
resonant with the AdS frequency. This was vindicated in Ref. [24], which found a large class of boson
star initial data that were non-perturbatively stable.
The current work mirrors the 5 dimensional solution found in [10] and given the above developments,
we are able to further elucidate the rather rich physics of these boson star solutions. For instance, the
damped oscillations in the mass implies that the boson stars corresponding to the mass maxima are all
non-perturbatively unstable to black hole formation. This could be related to the resonances of global
AdS, although this remains conjecture at this point. From the holographic dual perspective, this implies
that the boson stars correspond to strongly coupled CFT states that never thermalize, except at the
infinite tower of resonances corresponding to the boson star mass maxima. Little else is known about
the holographic dual description, other than that the CFT state is a localized scalar operator defining a
current that breaks rotational symmetry. Whether there are any physically realizable quantum systems
that share some of these properties remains to be seen, although such systems would be very intriguing
indeed, on account of the fact that they never thermalize in finite time (modulo the aforementioned
exceptions).

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of
Canada. D.L. was funded in part by the Rhodes Trust. M.O. acknowledges additional support from
the University of Waterloo Department of Applied Mathematics. We would like to thank M.Chanona,
H. Pfeiffer, O. Dias, and J. Santos for helpful discussions at various stages of this project.

15
 Appendix A: Representative Plots of the Metric and Scalar Field Functions

1.0
5

0.8
4

0.6
fHyL

gHyL
3

2 0.4

1 0.2

0 0.0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
y y

(a) Metric function f (y) for D = 5 and q0 = 5.0 (b) Metric function g(y) for D = 5 and q0 = 5.0

1.10 -1.5

1.08
-2.0
1.06
-2.5
1.04
WHyL
hHyL

-3.0
1.02

1.00 -3.5

0.98
-4.0
0.96
-4.5
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
y y

(c) Metric function h(y) for D = 5 and q0 = 5.0 (d) Metric function Ω(y) for D = 5 and q0 = 5.0

0.6

0.5

0.4
PHyL

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
y

(e) Metric function Π(y) for D = 5 and q0 = 5.0

Figure 3: Plots of the metric functions, f (y), g(y), h(y), and Ω(y), and the scalar field function, Π(y), for a
value of q0 = 5.0 in D = 5. We explicitly checked other values of q0 for D = 5, 7, 9, 11 and found that while the
vertical axes may have different ranges depending on the dimension and choice of q0 , the qualitative features of
the graphs remain the same.

16
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