New islands of stability with double-trace deformations

Abstract: We assess the role of a resonant spectrum in the AdS instability, and quantify the extent to which breaking the resonant spectrum of AdS can restore stability. Specifically, we study non-collapsing `multi-oscillator' solutions in AdS under various boundary conditions that allow for both resonant and non-resonant spectra. We find non-collapsing two mode, equal amplitude solutions in the non-resonant Robin case, and that these solutions vanish in the fully resonant Dirichlet case. This is consistent with non-resonant stability, and with the idea that stable solutions in the Dirichlet case are all single-mode dominated. Surprisingly, when the boundary condition is Neumann, we find non-collapsing solutions arbitrarily close to AdS that are not single-mode dominated, despite the spectrum being fully resonant.