Continuous Hawking-Page transitions in Einstein-scalar gravity

Understand

We investigate continuous Hawking-Page transitions in Einstein's gravity coupled to a scalar field with an arbitrary potential in the weak gravity limit.

• We show that this is only possible in a singular limit where the black-hole horizon marginally traps a curvature singularity.
• Depending on the subleading terms in the potential, a rich variety of continuous phase transitions arise.
• Our examples include second and higher order, including the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless type.