Instability of black strings in third-order Lovelock theory

Understand

We show that homogeneous black strings of third-order Lovelock theory are unstable under s-wave perturbations.

• This analysis is done in dimension $D=9$, which is the lowest dimension that allows the existence of homogeneous black strings in a theory that contains only the third-order Lovelock term in the Lagrangian.
• As is the case in general relativity, the instability is produced by long wavelength perturbations and it stands for the perturbative counterpart of a thermal instability.
• We also provide a comparative analysis of the instabilities of black strings at a fixed radius in general relativity, Gauss-Bonnet and third-order Lovelock theory.