Hawking–Page phase transition

In quantum gravity, the Hawking–Page phase transition is phase transition between AdS black holes with radiation and thermal AdS.

Hawking and Page (Hawking & Page (1983)) showed that although AdS black holes can be in stable thermal equilibrium with radiation, they are not the preferred state below a certain critical temperature ${\displaystyle T_{C}}$. At this temperature, there will be a first order phase transition where below ${\displaystyle T_{C}}$, thermal AdS will become the dominant contribution to the partition function.