An obstruction to the implementation of spatially flat Painleve-Gullstrand(PG) slicings is demonstrated, and explicitly discussed for Reissner-Nordstrom and Schwarzschild-anti-deSitter spacetimes. Generalizations of PG slicings which are not spatially flat but which remain regular at the horizons are introduced. These metrics can be obtained from standard spherically symmetric metrics by physical Lorentz boosts. With these generalized PG metrics, problematic contributions to the imaginary part of the action in the Parikh-Wilczek derivation of Hawking radiation due to the obstruction can be avoided.
A nonstatic Schwarzschild black hole interior solution in Painleve-Gullstrand coordinates is proposed in this paper, by means of a coordinate transformation that changes the spatial coordinate but the timelike one is preserved. The timelike and null geodesic equations are obtained exactly, taking advantage that the spatial z-coordinate is cyclic.
We investigate Choptuik scaling in the spherically symmetric collapse of a massless scalar field in higher dimensions using Painleve-Gullstrand (P-G) coordinates. Our analysis confirms the presence in higher dimensions of the cusps in the periodic scaling relationship recently observed in four dimensional collapse. In addition, we address the issue of the asymptotic behaviour of the critical exponent as the number of spacetime dimensions gets large. Our results are consistent with earlier work suggesting that the critical exponent monotonically approaches 1/2 in this limit.
The principle of equivalence is used to examine covariant descriptions of quantum phenomena within the global exterior of geometries described using Painlevé- Gullstrand coordinates, which are everywhere non-singular away from their center. The differences between the descriptions of observers stationary within the curvilinear geometry and those in a locally-flat freely-falling system that is momentarily at rest are found to depend only on local proper accelerations, becoming vanishingly small for increasingly distant observers. Away from the horizon, the local detections of outgoing massless …
The aim of this work is to apply WIMT to Gullstránd-Painlevé and Reissner-Nordström metrics in the framework of Weitzeböck Induced Matter Theory (WIMT). This is a newly developed method that extends Induced Matter Theory from a curved 5D manifold using the Weitzeböck's geometry, using the fact that the Riemann-Weitzeböck curvature tensor is always null. We obtain the presence of currents whose interpretation can lead to the presence of stable gravito-magnetic monopoles.
Following on from two recent papers, here we examine the relationship between Newtonian gravitation and general relativity in more depth. This allows us to define a scalar potential which is just the proper time of the vector potential when the latter is interpreted as the geodesic velocity field. The results are closely related to spacetimes that admit Painlevé--Gullstrand synchronization.
The group of rigid motions is considered to guide the search for a natural system of space-time coordinates in General Relativity. This search leads us to a natural extension of the space-times that support Painlevé--Gullstrand synchronization. As an interesting example, here we describe a system of rigid coordinates for the cross mode of gravitational linear plane waves.
We conduct numerical simulations in Painlevé-Gullstrand coordinates of a variety of K-essence-type scalar fields under spherically symmetric gravitational collapse. We write down generic conditions on the K-essence lagrangian that can be used to determine whether superluminality and Cauchy breakdown are possible. Consistent with these conditions, for specific choices of K-essence-type fields we verify the presence of superluminality during collapse, while for other type we do not. We also demonstrate that certain choices of K-essence scalar fields present issues under gravitational collapse in…
The Painleve-Gullstrand coordinates provide a convenient framework for presenting the Schwarzschild geometry because of their flat constant-time hypersurfaces, and the fact that they are free of coordinate singularities outside r=0. Generalizations of Painleve-Gullstrand coordinates suitable for the Kerr geometry have been presented by Doran and Natario. These coordinate systems feature a time coordinate identical to the proper time of zero-angular-momentum observers that are dropped from infinity. Here, the methods of Doran and Natario are extended to the five-dimensional rotating black hole …
A Painlevé-Gullstrand synchronization is a slicing of the space-time by a family of flat spacelike 3-surfaces. For spherically symmetric space-times, we show that a Painlevé-Gullstrand synchronization only exists in the region where $(dr)^2 \leq 1$, $r$ being the curvature radius of the isometry group orbits ($2$-spheres). This condition says that the Misner-Sharp gravitational energy of these 2-spheres is not negative and has an intrinsic meaning in terms of the norm of the mean extrinsic curvature vector. It also provides an algebraic inequality involving the Weyl curvature scalar and the Ri…
We construct an exact solution for the spherical gravitational collapse in a single coordinate patch. To describe the dynamics of collapse, we use a generalized form of the Painlevé-Gullstrand coordinates in the Schwarzschild spacetime. The time coordinate of the form is the proper time of a free-falling observer so that we can describe the collapsing star not only outside but also inside the event horizon in a single coordinate patch. We show the both solutions corresponding to the gravitational collapse from infinity and from a finite radius.
Generalized Painleve-Gullstrand metrics are explicitly constructed for the Kerr-Newman family of charged rotating black holes. These descriptions are free of all coordinate singularities; moreover, unlike the Doran and other proposed metrics, an extra tunable function is introduced to ensure all variables in the metrics remain real for all values of the mass M, charge Q, angular momentum aM, and cosmological constant Λ> - 3/(a^2). To describe fermions in Kerr-Newman spacetimes, the stronger requirement of non-singular vierbein one-forms at the horizon(s) is imposed and coordinate singularities…
The properties of an anisotropic fluid outside a star or a black hole embedded in an expanding universe are investigated. One finds that, in Painleve-Gullstrand coordinates, the heat flux of the cosmological fluid vanishes, in spite of the nonzero value of a non-diagonal component of the stress tensor. The pressures and energy density of the fluid are regular at $r = 2m$, divergent at $r = 0$ and change sign at certain values of their arguments.
Painlevé-Gullstrand coordinates, a very useful tool in spherical horizon thermodynamics, fail in anti-de Sitter space and in the inner region of Reissner-Nordström. We predict this breakdown to occur in any region containing negative Misner-Sharp-Hernandez quasilocal mass because of repulsive gravity stopping the motion of PG observers in radial free fall with zero initial velocity. PG coordinates break down also in the static Einstein universe for completely different reasons. The more general Martel-Poisson family of charts, which normally has PG coordinates as a limit, is reported for stati…
We discuss the tension between the possible existence of Painleve-Gullstrand coordinate systems versus the explicit geometrical features of the Kerr spacetime; a subject of interest to Professor Thanu Padmanabhan in the weeks immediately preceding his unexpected death. We shall carefully distinguish strong and weak Painleve-Gullstrand coordinate systems, and conformal variants thereof, cataloguing what we know can and cannot be done -- sometimes we can make explicit global statements, sometimes we must resort to implicit local statements. For the Kerr spacetime the best that seems to be achiev…
In a previous paper we have considered the Regge-Wheeler equation for fields of spin $s=0$, $1$ or $2$ on the Schwarzschild spacetime in coordinates that are regular at the horizon. In particular, we have constructed in Eddington-Finkelstein coordinates exact solutions in terms of series that are regular at the horizon and converge on the entire open domain from the central singularity to infinity. Here we extend this earlier work in two different directions. Firstly, we consider in Eddington-Finkelstein coordinates a massive scalar field that can serve as a dark matter candidate. Secondly, we…
Cosmology is most typically analyzed using standard co-moving coordinates, in which the galaxies are (on average, up to presumably small peculiar velocities) "at rest", while "space" is expanding. But this is merely a specific coordinate choice; and it is important to realise that for certain purposes other, (sometimes radically different) coordinate choices might also prove useful and informative, but without changing the underlying physics. Specifically, herein we shall consider the k=0 spatially flat FLRW cosmology but in Painleve-Gullstrand coordinates -- these coordinates are very explici…
We construct a coordinate system for the Kerr solution, based on the zero angular momentum observers dropped from infinity, which generalizes the Painleve-Gullstrand coordinate system for the Schwarzschild solution. The Kerr metric can then be interpreted as describing space flowing on a (curved) Riemannian 3-manifold. The stationary limit arises as the set of points on this manifold where the speed of the flow equals the speed of light, and the horizons as the set of points where the radial speed equals the speed of light. A deeper analysis of what is meant by the flow of space reveals that t…
Recently, the current authors have formulated and extensively explored a rather novel Painleve-Gullstrand variant of the slow-rotation Lense-Thirring spacetime, a variant which has particularly elegant features -- including unit lapse, intrinsically flat spatial 3-slices, and a separable Klein-Gordon equation (wave operator). This spacetime also possesses a non-trivial Killing tensor, implying separability of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, the existence of a Carter constant, and complete formal integrability of the the geodesic equations. Herein we investigate the geodesics in some detail, in t…
We investigate a foliation of Schwarzschild spacetime determined by observers freely falling in the radial direction. This is described using a generalisation of Gullstrand-Painlevé coordinates which allows for any possible radial velocity. This foliation provides a contrast with the usual static foliation implied by Schwarzschild coordinates. The $3$-dimensional spaces are distinct for the static and falling observers, so the embedding diagrams, spatial measurement, simultaneity, and time at infinity are also distinct, though the $4$-dimensional spacetime is unchanged. Our motivation is conce…
Recently, the authors have formulated and explored a novel Painleve-Gullstrand variant of the Lense-Thirring spacetime, which has some particularly elegant features -- including unit-lapse, intrinsically flat spatial 3-slices, and some particularly simple geodesics, the "rain" geodesics. At linear level in the rotation parameter this spacetime is indistinguishable from the usual slow-rotation expansion of Kerr. Herein, we shall show that this spacetime possesses a nontrivial Killing tensor, implying separability of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation. Furthermore, we shall show that the Klein-Gordon …
Making use of the higher dimensional global embedding Minkowski spacetime (GEMS), we embed (3+1)-dimensional Schwarzschild and Reissner-Nordström (RN) black holes written by the Painlevé-Gullstrand (PG) spacetimes, which have off-diagonal components in metrics, into (5+1)- and (5+2)-dimensional flat ones, respectively. As a result, we have shown the equivalence of the GEMS embeddings of the spacetimes with the diagonal and off-diagonal terms in metrics. Moreover, with the aid of their geodesic equations satisfying various boundary conditions in the flat embedded spacetimes, we directly obtain …
It is well known that static spherically symmetric spacetimes can admit foliations by flat spacelike hypersurfaces, which are best described in terms of the Painlevè--Gullstrand coordinates. The uniqueness and existence of such foliations were addressed earlier. In this paper, we prove, purely geometrically, that any possible foliation of a static spherically symmetric spacetime by an arbitrary codimension-one spherical spacelike geometry, up to time translation and rotation, is unique, and we find the algebraic condition under which it exists. This leads us to what can be considered as the mo…
It is demonstrated that with using Painlev{é}-Gullstrand coordinates in their quasi-Cartesian variant, the Hamiltonian functional for relativistic perfect fluid hydrodynamics near a non-rotating black hole differs from the corresponding flat-spacetime Hamiltonian just by a simple term. Moreover, the internal region of the black hole is then described uniformly together with the external region, because in Painlev{é}-Gullstrand coordinates there is no singularity at the event horizon. An exact solution is presented which describes stationary accretion of an ultra-hard matter ($\varepsilon\propt…
The Painleve-Gullstrand coordinates are extended to describe the black hole in the cosmological environment: the Schwarzschild-de-Sitter black hole, which has two horizons. The extension is made using the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner formalism. In this extension, which describes the metric in the whole range of radial coordinates $0<r < \infty$, there is the point $r=r_0$ at which the shift function (velocity) changes sign. At this point the observer is at rest, while the observers at $r<r_0$ are free falling to the black hole and the observers at $r>r_0$ are free falling towards the cosmological hor…
We find a specific coordinate system that goes from the Painlevé-Gullstrand partial extension to the Kruskal-Szekeres maximal extension and thus exhibit the maximal extension of the Schwarzschild metric in a unified picture. We do this by adopting two time coordinates, one being the proper time of a congruence of outgoing timelike geodesics, the other being the proper time of a congruence of ingoing timelike geodesics, both parameterized by the same energy per unit mass $E$. $E$ is in the range $1\leq E<\infty$ with the limit $E=\infty$ yielding the Kruskal-Szekeres maximal extension. So, thro…
The standard Lense-Thirring metric is a century-old slow-rotation large-distance approximation to the gravitational field outside a rotating massive body, depending only on the total mass and angular momentum of the source. Although it is not an exact solution to the vacuum Einstein equations, asymptotically the Lense-Thirring metric approaches the Kerr metric at large distances. Herein we shall discuss a specific variant of the standard Lense-Thirring metric, carefully chosen for simplicity, clarity, and various forms of "improved" behaviour, (to be more carefully defined in the body of the a…
Herein we explore the non-equatorial constant-$r$ ("quasi-circular") geodesics (both timelike and null) in the Painleve-Gullstrand variant of the Lense-Thirring spacetime recently introduced by the current authors. Even though the spacetime is not spherically symmetric, shells of constant-$r$ geodesics still exist. Whereas the radial motion is (by construction) utterly trivial, determining the allowed locations of these constant-$r$ geodesics is decidedly non-trivial, and the stability analysis is equally tricky. Regarding the angular motion, these constant-$r$ orbits will be seen to exhibit b…
The Lense--Thirring spacetime describes a 4-dimensional slowly rotating approximate solution of vacuum Einstein equations valid to a linear order in rotation parameter. It is fully characterized by a single metric function of the corresponding static (Schwarzschild) solution. In this paper, we introduce a generalization of the Lense--Thirring spacetimes to the higher-dimensional multiply-spinning case, with an ansatz that is not necessarily fully characterized by a single (static) metric function. This generalization lets us study slowly rotating spacetimes in various higher curvature gravitie…
In this paper, we study the existence of universal horizons in a given static spacetime, and find that the test khronon field can be solved explicitly when its velocity becomes infinitely large, at which point the universal horizon coincides with the sound horizon of the khronon. Choosing the timelike coordinate aligned with the khronon, the static metric takes a simple form, from which it can be seen clearly that the metric is free of singularity at the Killing horizon, but becomes singular at the universal horizon. Applying such developed formulas to three well-known black hole solutions, th…
