A new approach to the dynamics of AdS space-times

In the last years, the stability of Anti-de Sitter (AdS) space-times has attracted a lot of attention. Not only because of its own importance but primarily due to the AdS/CFT correspondence that conjectures an equivalence between an string theory on an asymptotically AdS space-time and a conformally invariant quantum field theory (CFT). Recently, Bizon and Rostworowski (2011) showed that the boundary of AdS prevents energy from dispersing. As a consequence, AdS perturbations will collapse after bouncing back from the AdS boundary a sufficient number of times for their energy to be concentrated enough. The details of the mechanisms that triggers the instability are currently an active topic of discussion. Here, we present a new approach to the problem of the collapse of a massless scalar field that introduces a transition from a Cauchy-based evolution to a charateristic one that is able to track with greater accuracy the latest stages of the collapse.