Gravitational perturbations in a cavity: Nonlinearities

Abstract

Motivated by recent studies of nonlinear perturbations of asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetimes, we study gravitational perturbations of ( n + 2 ) dimensional Minkowski spacetime with a spherical Dirichlet wall. By considering the tensor, vector, and scalar perturbations on the n sphere, we present simplified nonhomogeneous equations at arbitrary order in a weakly nonlinear perturbation theory for each sector. A suitable choice of perturbative variables is required at higher orders to simplify the expression for the boundary conditions and to expand the variables in terms of linear order eigenfunctions. Finally we comment on the nonlinear stability of the system. Some of the tools used can easily be generalized to study nonlinear perturbations of anti-de Sitter spacetime.