Curvature singularities: The good, the bad, and the naked

Abstract

Necessary conditions are proposed for the admissibility of singular classical solutions with 3 + 1-dimensional Poincare invariance to five-dimensional gravity coupled to scalars. Finite temperature considerations and examples from AdS/CFT support the conjecture that the scalar potential must remain bounded above for a solution to be physical. Having imposed some restrictions on naked singularities allows us to comment on a recent proposal for solving the cosmological constant problem.