Vacuum thin shell solutions in five dimensional lovelock gravity

Abstract

Junction conditions for vacuum solutions in five-dimensional Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity are studied. Two spherically symmetric regions of space-time are joined in with vanishing stress tensor on the junction surface. Such solutions are a generalized kind of spherically symmetric empty space solutions, described by metric functions of the class C0. New global structures arise with surprising features. In particular, vacuum wormholes do exist in this theory. These can be regarded as gravitational solitons, which connect two asymptotically (Anti) de-Sitter spaces with different masses and/or different effective cosmological constants. We prove the existence of both static and dynamical solutions and discuss their (in)stability under perturbations that preserve the symmetry. Copyright © 2012 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.