Finite action for three dimensional gravity with a minimally coupled scalar field -: art. no. 084007

Three-dimensional gravity with a minimally coupled self-interacting scalar is considered. The falloff of the fields at infinity is assumed to be slower than that of a localized distribution of matter in the presence of a negative cosmological constant. However, the asymptotic symmetry group remains to be the conformal group. The counterterm Lagrangian needed to render the action finite is found by demanding that the action attain an extremum for the boundary conditions implied by the above falloff of the fields at infinity. These counterterms explicitly depend on the scalar field. As a consequence, the Brown-York stress-energy tensor acquires a nontrivial contribution from the matter sector. Static circularly symmetric solutions with a regular scalar field are explored for a one-parameter family of potentials. Their masses are computed via the Brown-York quasilocal stress-energy tensor, and they coincide with the values obtained from the Hamiltonian approach. The thermal behavior, including the transition between different configurations, is analyzed, and it is found that the scalar black hole can decay into the Banados-Teitelboim-Zanelli solution irrespective of the horizon radius. It is also shown that the AdS conformal field theory correspondence yields the same central charge as for pure gravity.