LAUSR

Abstract We study non-linearly the gravitational instabilities of the Reissner- Nordstrom-de Sitter and the Gauss-Bonnet-de Sitter black holes by using the large D expansion method. In both cases, the thresholds of the instability are found to be con- sistent with the linear analysis, and on the thresholds the evolutions of the black holes under the perturbations settle down to stationary lumpy solutions. However, the solutions in the unstable region are highly time-dependent, and resemble the fully localized black spots and black ring with S D−2 and S 1 × S D−3 topologies, respectively. Our study indi- cates the possible transition between the lumpy black holes and the localized black holes in higher dimensions.