1. |
- Barack, Leor, et al.
(author)
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Black holes, gravitational waves and fundamental physics : a roadmap
- 2019
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In: Classical and quantum gravity. - : IOP Publishing. - 0264-9381 .- 1361-6382. ; 36:14
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Research review (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The grand challenges of contemporary fundamental physics dark matter, dark energy, vacuum energy, inflation and early universe cosmology, singularities and the hierarchy problem all involve gravity as a key component. And of all gravitational phenomena, black holes stand out in their elegant simplicity, while harbouring some of the most remarkable predictions of General Relativity: event horizons, singularities and ergoregions. The hitherto invisible landscape of the gravitational Universe is being unveiled before our eyes: the historical direct detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO-Virgo collaboration marks the dawn of a new era of scientific exploration. Gravitational-wave astronomy will allow us to test models of black hole formation, growth and evolution, as well as models of gravitational-wave generation and propagation. It will provide evidence for event horizons and ergoregions, test the theory of General Relativity itself, and may reveal the existence of new fundamental fields. The synthesis of these results has the potential to radically reshape our understanding of the cosmos and of the laws of Nature. The purpose of this work is to present a concise, yet comprehensive overview of the state of the art in the relevant fields of research, summarize important open problems, and lay out a roadmap for future progress. This write-up is an initiative taken within the framework of the European Action on 'Black holes, Gravitational waves and Fundamental Physics'.
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2. |
- Ames, Ellery, 1984, et al.
(author)
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On axisymmetric and stationary solutions of the self-gravitating Vlasov system
- 2016
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In: Classical and Quantum Gravity. - : IOP Publishing. - 0264-9381 .- 1361-6382. ; 33:15
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Axisymmetric and stationary solutions are constructed to the Einstein-Vlasov and Vlasov-Poisson systems. These solutions are constructed numerically, using finite element methods and a fixed-point iteration in which the total mass is fixed at each step. A variety of axisymmetric stationary solutions are exhibited, including solutions with toroidal, disk-like, spindle-like, and composite spatial density configurations, as are solutions with non-vanishing net angular momentum. In the case of toroidal solutions, we show for the first time, solutions of the Einstein-Vlasov system which contain ergoregions.
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3. |
- Andersson, Lars Erik, et al.
(author)
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Decay of solutions to the Maxwell equation on the Schwarzschild background
- 2016
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In: Classical and Quantum Gravity. - : IOP Publishing. - 0264-9381 .- 1361-6382. ; 33:8
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A new Morawetz or integrated local energy decay estimate for Maxwell test fields on the exterior of a Schwarzschild black hole spacetime is proved. The proof makes use of a new superenergy tensor H-ab defined in terms of the Maxwell field and its first derivatives. The superenergy tensor, although not conserved, yields a conserved higher order energy current H-ab (partial derivative(t))(b). The tensor Hab vanishes for the static Coulomb field, and the Morawetz estimate proved here therefore yields integrated decay for the Maxwell field to the Coulomb solution on the Schwarzschild exterior.
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4. |
- Khoo, Fech Scen, et al.
(author)
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Lux in obscuro : photon orbits of extremal black holes revisited
- 2016
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In: Classical and quantum gravity. - : Institute of Physics Publishing. - 0264-9381 .- 1361-6382. ; 33:23
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- It has been shown in the literature that the event horizon of an asymptotically flat extremal Reissner-Nordstrom black hole is also a stable photon sphere. We further clarify this statement and give a general proof that this holds for a large class of static spherically symmetric black hole spacetimes with an extremal horizon. In contrast, in the Doran frame, an asymptotically flat extremal Kerr black hole has an unstable photon orbit on the equatorial plane of its horizon. In addition, we show that an asymptotically flat extremal Kerr-Newman black hole exhibits two equatorial photon orbits if a < M/2, one of which is on the extremal horizon in the Doran frame and is stable, whereas the second one outside the horizon is unstable. For a > M/2, there is only one equatorial photon orbit, located on the extremal horizon, and it is unstable. There can be no photon orbit on the horizon of a non-extremal Kerr-Newman black hole.
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5. |
- Apolo, Luis, et al.
(author)
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Non-linear partially massless symmetry in an SO(1,5) continuation of conformal gravity
- 2017
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In: Classical and quantum gravity. - : IOP Publishing. - 0264-9381 .- 1361-6382. ; 34:10
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We construct a non-linear theory of interacting spin-2 fields that is invariant under the partially massless (PM) symmetry to all orders. This theory is based on the SO(1, 5) group, in analogy with the SO(2, 4) formulation of conformal gravity, but has a quadratic spectrum free of ghost instabilities. The action contains a vector field associated with a local SO(2) symmetry which is manifest in the vielbein formulation of the theory. We show that, in a perturbative expansion, the SO(2) symmetry transmutes into the PM transformations of a massive spin-2 field. In this context, the vector field is crucial to circumvent earlier obstructions to an order-by-order construction of PM symmetry. Although the non-linear theory lacks enough first class constraints to remove all helicity-0 modes from the spectrum, the PM transformations survive to all orders. The absence of ghosts and strong coupling effects at the non-linear level are not addressed here.
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6. |
- Bengtsson, Ingemar, et al.
(author)
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Black hole lattices under the microscope
- 2018
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In: Classical and quantum gravity. - : IOP Publishing. - 0264-9381 .- 1361-6382. ; 35:14
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- It is known how to choose initial data for Einstein's equations describing an arbitrary number of black holes at a moment of time symmetry. This idea has been used to give insight into the cosmological averaging problem. We study the local curvature of the initial data space, for configurations of 8, 120, or 600 black holes obtained by choosing points either regularly or randomly on a 3-sphere. We conclude that the asymptotic regions are remarkably close to that of Schwarzschild, while the region in between shows interesting behaviour. The cosmological back reaction as defined in the recent literature is actually a bit smaller for the random configurations.
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7. |
- Bentivegna, Eloisa, et al.
(author)
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Black-hole lattices as cosmological models
- 2018
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In: Classical and quantum gravity. - : IOP Publishing. - 0264-9381 .- 1361-6382. ; 35:17
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The search for solutions of Einstein's equations representing relativistic cosmological models with a discrete matter content has been remarkably fruitful in the last decade. In this review we discuss the progress made in the study of a specific subclass of discrete cosmologies, black-hole lattice models. In particular, we illustrate the techniques used for the construction of these spacetimes, and examine their resulting physical properties. This includes their large-scale dynamics, the dressing of mass due to the interaction between individual black holes, along with features of direct observational interest such as the distance-to-redshift relation. This collection of results provides a novel perspective on the physical effects of averaging in general relativity, as well as on the emergence of gravitational structures from solutions with isolated objects.
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8. |
- Cabrera Pacheco, A. J., et al.
(author)
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Asymptotically flat extensions of CMC Bartnik data
- 2017
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In: Classical and quantum gravity. - : Institute of Physics Publishing. - 0264-9381 .- 1361-6382. ; 34:10
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Let g be a metric on the 2-sphere with positive Gaussian curvature and H be a positive constant. Under suitable conditions on (g, H), we construct smooth, asymptotically flat 3-manifolds M with non-negative scalar curvature, with outer-minimizing boundary isometric to and having mean curvature H, such that near infinity M is isometric to a spatial Schwarzschild manifold whose mass m can be made arbitrarily close to a constant multiple of the Hawking mass of . Moreover, this constant multiplicative factor depends only on (g, H) and tends to 1 as H tends to 0. The result provides a new upper bound of the Bartnik mass associated with such boundary data.
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9. |
- Casalino, Alessandro, et al.
(author)
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Alive and well : mimetic gravity and a higher-order extension in light of GW170817
- 2019
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In: Classical and quantum gravity. - : IOP Publishing. - 0264-9381 .- 1361-6382. ; 36:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The near-simultaneous multi-messenger detection of the gravitational wave (GW) event GW170817 and its optical counterpart, the short gamma-ray burst GRB170817A, implies that deviations of the GW speed from the speed of light are restricted to being of Omicron(10(-15)). In this note, we study the implications of this bound for mimetic gravity and confirm that in the original setting of the theory, GWs propagate at the speed of light, hence ensuring agreement with the recent multi-messenger detection. A higher-order extension of the original mimetic theory, appearing in the low-energy limit of projectable Horava-Lifshitz gravity, is then considered. Performing a Bayesian statistical analysis where we compare the predictions of the higher-order mimetic model for the speed of GWs against the observational bound from GW170817/GRB170817A, we derive constraints on the three free parameters of the theory. Imposing the absence of both ghost instabilities and superluminal propagation of scalar and tensor perturbations, we find very stringent 95% confidence level upper limits of similar to 7 x 10(-15) and similar to 4 x 10(-15)on the coupling strengths of Lagrangian terms of the form del(mu)del(nu)phi del(mu)del(nu)phi and (square phi)(2) respectively, with phi the mimetic field. We discuss implications of the obtained bounds for mimetic theories. This work presents the first ever robust comparison of a mimetic theory to observational data.
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10. |
- Golovnev, Alexey, et al.
(author)
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On the covariance of teleparallel gravity theories
- 2017
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In: Classical and quantum gravity. - : Institute of Physics Publishing (IOPP). - 0264-9381 .- 1361-6382. ; 34:14
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The basics of teleparallel gravity and its extensions are reviewed with particular emphasis on the problem of the Lorentz-breaking choice of connection in pure-tetrad versions of the theories. Various possible ways to covariantise such models are discussed. A by-product is a new form of f (T) field equations.
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