Gubser-Mitra Conjecture

The Gubser-Mitra Conjecture suggests that certain extended objects in higher-dimensional gravity, like black branes (black hole analogs stretched in extra dimensions), are unstable if they have negative specific heat—that is, their temperature increases as they lose energy. Specifically, the conjecture states that a black brane’s thermodynamic instability (negative specific heat) directly corresponds to a classical dynamical instability, meaning the object will physically break apart or evolve irregularly. This link between thermodynamic and dynamical instability helps understand the stability properties of such exotic gravitational structures within string theory and higher-dimensional physics.