We study type II universal metrics of the Lorentzian signature. These metrics simultaneously solve vacuum field equations of all theories of gravitation with the Lagrangian being a polynomial curvature invariant constructed from the metric, the Riemann tensor and its covariant derivatives of an arbitrary order.
We provide examples of type II universal metrics for all composite number dimensions. On the other hand, we have no examples for prime number dimensions and we prove the non-existence of type II universal spacetimes in five dimensions.
We also present type II vacuum solutions of selected classes of gravitational theories, such as Lovelock, quadratic and L(Riemann) gravities.
Universal spacetimes are exact solutions to all higher-order theories of gravity. We study these spacetimes in four dimensions and provide necessary and sufficient conditions for universality for all Petrov types except of type II. We show that all universal spacetimes in four dimensions are algebraically special and Kundt. Petrov type D universal spacetimes are necessarily direct products of two 2-spaces of constant and equal curvature. Furthermore, type II universal spacetimes necessarily possess a null recurrent direction and they admit the above type D direct product metrics as a limit. Su…
Universal spacetimes are spacetimes for which all conserved symmetric rank-2 tensors, constructed as contractions of polynomials from the metric, the Riemann tensor and its covariant derivatives of arbitrary order, are multiples of the metric. Consequently, metrics of universal spacetimes solve vacuum equations of all gravitational theories with Lagrangian being a polynomial curvature invariant constructed from the metric, the Riemann tensor and its derivatives of arbitrary order. In the literature, universal metrics are also discussed as metrics with vanishing quantum corrections and as class…
We study almost universal spacetimes - spacetimes for which the field equations of any generalized gravity with the Lagrangian constructed from the metric, the Riemann tensor and its covariant derivatives of arbitrary order reduce to one single differential equation and one algebraic condition for the Ricci scalar. We prove that all d-dimensional Kundt spacetimes of Weyl type III and traceless Ricci type N are almost universal. Explicit examples of Weyl type II almost universal Kundt metrics are also given. The considerable simplification of the field equations of higher-order gravity theories…
Horava gravity theory possesses global Lifshitz space as a solution and has been conjectured to provide a natural framework for Lifshitz holography. We derive the conditions on the two derivative Horava gravity Lagrangian that are necessary for static, asymptotically Lifshitz spacetimes with flat transverse dimensions to contain a universal horizon, which plays a similar thermodynamic role as the Killing horizon in general relativity. Specializing to z=2 in 1+2 dimensions, we then numerically construct such regular solutions over the whole spacetime. We calculate the mass for these solutions a…
We construct a generalized Smarr formula which could provide a thermodynamic route to derive the covariant field equation of general theories of gravity in dynamic spacetimes. Combining some thermodynamic variables and a new chemical potential conjugated to the number of degree of freedom on the holographic screen, we find a universal Cardy-Verlinde formula and give its braneworld interpretation. We demonstrate that the associated AdS-Bekenstein bound is tighten than the previous expression for multi-charge black holes in the gauged supergravities. The Cardy-Verlinde formula and the AdS-Bekens…
We calculate Sorkin's spacetime entanglement entropy of a Gaussian scalar field for complementary regions in the 2d cylinder spacetime and show that it has the Calabrese-Cardy form. We find that the cut-off dependent term is universal when we use a covariant UV cut-off. In addition, we show that the relative size-dependent term exhibits complementarity. Its coefficient is however not universal and depends on the choice of pure state. It asymptotes to the universal form within a natural class of pure states.
In this paper, the following two propositions are proven under the dominant energy condition for the matter field in the higher-dimensional spherically symmetric spacetime in Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity in the presence of a cosmological constant $Λ$. First, for $Λ\le 0$ and $α\ge 0$ without a fine-tuning to give a unique anti-de Sitter vacuum, where $α$ is the Gauss-Bonnet coupling constant, vanishing generalized Misner-Sharp mass is equivalent to the maximally symmetric spacetime. Under the fine-tuning, it is equivalent to the vacuum class I spacetime. Second, under the fine-tuning with $α>…
We study universal electromagnetic (test) fields, i.e., p-forms fields F that solve simultaneously (virtually) any generalized electrodynamics (containing arbitrary powers and derivatives of F in the field equations) in n spacetime dimensions. One of the main results is a sufficient condition: any null F that solves Maxwell's equations in a Kundt spacetime of aligned Weyl and traceless-Ricci type III is universal (in particular thus providing examples of p-form Galileons on curved Kundt backgrounds). In addition, a few examples in Kundt spacetimes of Weyl type II are presented. Some necessary …
We investigate thermodynamic behaviors of the $D$-dimensional gravity coupled to a dynamical unit timelike vector, the aether, present two kinds of exact charged solutions and study the linearized wave spectrum of this theory. There is an universal horizon behind the Killing horizon in these aether black holes. It is interesting that there exist $D$-dimensional Schwarzschild, Reissner-Nordström and charged Schwarzschild black holes but now with an universal horizon inside. We find that in the uncharged case for both kinds, or charged case but the charge $\bar Q\ll \bar r_0/2$ for the first kin…
We numerically solve for 2+1 asymptotically Lifshitz universal horizon solutions in Horava-Lifshitz gravity for dynamical exponents $z=2$ through $z=8$. We find that for all $z$ there is a thermodynamical first law and Smarr formula. Furthermore, we find that the energy-entropy relation expected for a thermal state in a two dimensional Lifshitz field theory, $E=\frac{2}{z+2}TS$, is also satisfied for universal horizons, including the correct $z$ scaling.
A perturbative method to compute the total travel time of both null and lightlike rays in arbitrary static spherically symmetric spacetimes in the weak field limit is proposed. The resultant total time takes a quasi-series form of the impact parameter. The coefficient of this series at a certain order $n$ is shown to be determined by the asymptotic expansion of the metric functions to the order $n+1$. To the leading order(s), the time delay, as well as the difference between the time delays of two kinds of relativistic signals, is then shown to take a universal form for all SSS spacetimes. Thi…
Recently, a coherent picture of the quantum mechanics of an evaporating black hole has been presented which reconciles unitarity with the predictions of the equivalence principle. The thermal nature of a black hole as viewed in a distant reference frame arises from entanglement between the hard and soft modes, generated by the chaotic dynamics at the string scale. In this paper, we elaborate on this picture, particularly emphasizing the importance of the chaotic nature of the string (UV) dynamics across all low energy species in generating large (IR) spacetime behind the horizon. Implications …
In this paper, we have studied the thermodynamics of Gauss-Bonnet black holes in D-dimensional $AdS$ spacetime. Here, the cosmological constant ($Λ$), Newton's gravitational constant ($G$) and the Gauss-Bonnet parameter ($α$) are varied in the bulk, and a mixed first law is rewritten considering central charge ($C$) (of dual boundary conformal theory) and its conjugate variable utilising the gauge-gravity duality. A novel universal nature of central charge near the critical point of black hole phase transition in Einstein's gravity has been observed in \cite{mann1}. We observe that this univer…
It is well known that 4-dimensional Kerr-NUT-AdS spacetime possesses the hidden symmetry associated with the Killing-Yano tensor. This tensor is "universal" in the sense that there exist coordinates where it does not depend on any of the free parameters of the metric. Recently the general higher dimensional Kerr-NUT-AdS solutions of the Einstein equations were obtained. We demonstrate that all these metrics with arbitrary rotation and NUT parameters admit a universal Killing-Yano tensor. We give an explicit presentation of the Killing-Yano and Killing tensors and briefly discuss their properti…
We discuss particle production in spacetimes endowed with a universal horizon in Einstein--Aether and Horava gravity. We argue that continuity and differentiability of the lapse function require the orientation of the foliation in the interior of the horizon to be reversed with respect to the exterior one. Unless this is allowed, interaction of gravitating scalar fields with the universal horizon leads to unitarity violations in the quantum theory. This property is responsible for particle production by the universal horizon, as we show by computing explicitly its Hawking temperature for all s…
We study exact solutions of the infinite derivative gravity with null radiation which belong to the class of almost universal Weyl type III/N Kundt spacetimes. This class is defined by the property that all rank-2 tensors ${B_{ab}}$ constructed from the Riemann tensor and its covariant derivatives have traceless part of type N of the form $\mathcal{B}(\square)S_{ab}$ and the trace part constantly proportional to the metric. Here, $\mathcal{B}(\square)$ is an analytic operator and $S_{ab}$ is the traceless Ricci tensor. We show that the convoluted field equations reduce to a single non-local bu…
A special class of metrics, called universal metrics, solve all gravity theories defined by covariant field equations purely based on the metric tensor. Since we currently lack the knowledge of what the full of quantum-corrected field equations of gravity are at a given microscopic length scale, these metrics are particularly important in understanding quantum fields in curved backgrounds in a consistent way. But, finding explicit universal metrics has been a hard problem as there does not seem to be a procedure for it. In this work, we overcome this difficulty and give a construction of unive…
Causal set non-local wave operators allow both for the definition of an action for Causal set theory and the study of deviations from local physics that may have interesting phenomenological consequences. It was previously shown that, in all dimensions, the (unique) minimal discrete operators give averaged continuum non-local operators that reduce to $\Box-R/2$ in the local limit. Recently, dropping the constraint of minimality, it was shown that there exist an infinite number of discrete operators satisfying basic physical requirements and with the right local limit in flat spacetime. In this…
We describe what can be called the "universal" phase space of AdS3 gravity, in which the moduli spaces of globally hyperbolic AdS spacetimes with compact spatial sections, as well as the moduli spaces of multi-black-hole spacetimes are realized as submanifolds. The universal phase space is parametrized by two copies of the Universal Teichmüller space T(1) and is obtained from the correspondence between maximal surfaces in AdS3 and quasisymmetric homeomorphisms of the unit circle. We also relate our parametrization to the Chern-Simons formulation of 2+1 gravity and, infinitesimally, to the holo…
It seems to be a common understanding at present that, once event horizons are in thermal equilibrium, the entropy-area law holds inevitably. However no rigorous verification is given to such a very strong universality of the law in multi-horizon spacetimes. Then, based on thermodynamically consistent and rigorous discussion, this paper suggests an evidence of breakdown of entropy-area law for horizons in Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime, in which the temperatures of the horizons are different. The outline is as follows: We construct carefully "two thermal equilibrium systems" individually fo…
We develop a framework that facilitates the study of the causal structure of spacetimes with a causally preferred foliation. Such spacetimes may arise as solutions of Lorentz-violating theories, e.g. Horava gravity. Our framework allows us to rigorously define concepts such as black/white holes and to formalize the notion of a `universal horizon', that has been previously introduced in the simpler setting of static and spherically symmetric geometries. We also touch upon the issue of development and prove that universal horizons are Cauchy horizons when evolution depends on boundary data or as…
A set of simple rules for constructing the maximal (e.g. analytic) extensions for any metric with a Killing field in an (effectively) two-dimensional spacetime is formulated. The application of these rules is extremely straightforward, as is demonstrated at various examples and illustrated with numerous figures. Despite the resulting simplicity we also comment on some subtleties concerning the concept of Penrose diagrams. Most noteworthy among these, maybe, is that (smooth) spacetimes which have both degenerate and non-degenerate (Killing) horizons do not allow for globally smooth Penrose diag…
It has been long known that in spacetimes with a positive cosmological constant $Λ>0$ the area of spatially stable marginally trapped surfaces (MTSs) has a finite upper bound given by $4π/Λ$. In this paper I show that any such spacetime containing spatially stable MTSs with area approaching indefinitely that bound acquire universal properties generically. Specifically, they all possess {\em generalized} `holographic screens' (i.e. marginally trapped tubes) foliated by MTSs of spherical topology, composed of a dynamical horizon portion and a timelike membrane portion that meet at a distinguishe…
We present evidence that the universal Kovtun-Son-Starinets shear viscosity to entropy density ratio of 1/4πcan be associated with a Rindler causal horizon in flat spacetime. Since there is no known holographic (gauge/gravity) duality for this spacetime, a natural microscopic explanation for this viscosity is in the peculiar properties of quantum entanglement. In particular, it is well-known that the Minkowski vacuum state is a thermal state and carries an area entanglement entropy density in the Rindler spacetime. Based on the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, we expect a similar notion of vis…
Light rings (LRs) play an important role in gravitational wave observations and black hole photographs. In this paper, we investigate general features of LRs in stationary, axisymmetric, asymptotically flat spacetimes with or without horizons. For a nonextremal black hole, we show explicitly that there always exist at least two LRs propagating in opposite directions, where the outermost one is radially unstable. For an extremal black hole, we show that there exists at least one retrograde LR. We find that there is at least one LR which is angularly stable. The stability analysis does not invol…
The gap between a microscopic theory for quantum spacetime and the semiclassical physics of blackholes is bridged by treating the blackhole spacetimes as highly excited states of a class of nonlocal field theories. All the blackhole thermodynamics is shown to arise from asymptotic form of the dispersion relation satisfied by the elementary excitations of these field theories. These models involve, quite generically, fields which are: (i) smeared over regions of the order of Planck length and (ii) possess correlation functions which have universal short distance behaviour.
We study the properties of fundamental physical constants using the threefold classification of dimensional constants proposed by J.-M. L{é}vy-Leblond: constants of objects (masses, etc.), constants of phenomena (coupling constants), and "universal constants" (such as $c$ and $\hbar$). We show that all of the known "natural" systems of units contain at least one non-universal constant. We discuss the possible consequences of such non-universality, e.g., the dependence of some of these systems on the number of spatial dimensions. In the search for a "fully universal" system of units, we propose…
In this paper, we present all $[(d+1)+1]$-dimensional static diagonal vacuum solutions of the non-projectable Hořava-Lifshitz gravity in the IR limit, and show that they give rise to very rich Lifshitz-type structures, depending on the choice of the free parameters of the solutions. These include the Lifshitz spacetimes with or without hyperscaling violation, Lifshitz solitons, and black holes. Remarkably, even the theory breaks explicitly the Lorentz symmetry and allows generically instantaneous propagations, universal horizons still exist, which serve as one-way membranes for signals with an…
In recent literature there appeared conflicting claims about whether the Ozsváth-Robinson-Rózga family of type N electrovac spacetimes of the Kundt class with $Λ$ is complete. We show that indeed it is.
We analyse the extent of possible computations following Hogarth in Malament-Hogarth (MH) spacetimes, and Etesi and Németi in the special subclass containing rotating Kerr black holes. Hogarth had shown that any arithmetic statement could be resolved in a suitable MH spacetime. Etesi and Nemeti had shown that some \forall \exists relations on natural numbers which are neither universal nor co-universal, can be decided in Kerr spacetimes, and had asked specifically as to the extent of computational limits there. The purpose of this note is to address this question, and further show that MH spac…
We present a new ``universal property'' of entropy, that is the ``entropy sum'' relation of black holes in four dimensional (anti-)de-Sitter asymptotical background. They depend only on the cosmological constant with the necessary effect of the un-physical ``virtual'' horizon included in the spacetime where only the cosmological constant, mass of black hole, rotation parameter and Maxwell field exist. When there is more extra matter field in the spacetime, one will find the ``entropy sum'' is also dependent of the strength of these extra matter field. For both cases, we conclude that the ``ent…
We present a cylindrically symmetric, Petrov type D, nonexpanding, shear free and vorticity free solution of Einstein's field equations. The spacetime is asymptotically flat radially and regular everywhere except on the symmetry axis where it possesses a naked curvature singularity. The energy momentum tensor of the spacetime is that for an anisotropic fluid which satisfies the different energy conditions. This spacetime is used to generate a rotating spacetime which admits closed timelike curves and may represent a Cosmic Time Machine.
Free-fall is only approximately universal in general relativity. Different extended bodies can fall in different ways, depending on their internal dynamics. Nevertheless, certain aspects of their motion are universal. This paper examines the universal constraints on extended-body motion in vacuum type D spacetimes. Working in the quadrupole approximation, we show that in addition to the (previously-known) constraints imposed by Killing vectors, two components of the gravitational torque must vanish. Furthermore, of the ten components of a body's quadrupole moment, four are found to be irreleva…
Lorentz-violating gravity theories with a preferred foliation can have instantaneous propagation. Nonetheless, it has been shown that black holes can still exist in such theories and the relevant notion of an event horizon has been dubbed `universal horizon'. In stationary spacetimes the universal horizon has to reside in a region of spacetime where the Killing vector associated with stationarity is spacelike. This raises the question of what happens to the universal horizon in the extremal limit, where no such region exists anymore. We use a decoupling limit approximation to study this proble…
We show that all static spacetimes in higher dimensions are of Weyl types G, I_i, D or O. This applies also to stationary spacetimes if additional conditions are fulfilled, as for most known black hole/ring solutions. (The conclusions change when the Killing generator becomes null, such as at Killing horizons.) Next we demonstrate that the same Weyl types characterize warped product spacetimes with a one-dimensional Lorentzian (timelike) factor, whereas warped spacetimes with a two-dimensional Lorentzian factor are restricted to the types D or O. By exploring the Bianchi identities, we then an…
The strong cosmic censorship conjecture, introduced by Penrose five decades ago, asserts that, in self-consistent theories of gravity, Cauchy horizons inside dynamically formed black holes should be unstable to remnant perturbation fields that fall into the newly born black holes. The question of the (in)validity of this intriguing conjecture in non-asymptotically flat charged black-hole spacetimes has recently attracted much attention from physicists and mathematicians. We here provide a general proof, which is based on Bekenstein's generalized second law of thermodynamics, for the validity o…
The averaged null energy condition has known violations for quantum fields in curved space, even if one considers only achronal geodesics. Many such examples involve rapid variation in the stress-energy tensor in the vicinity of the geodesic under consideration, giving rise to the possibility that averaging in additional dimensions would yield a principle universally obeyed by quantum fields. However, after discussing various procedures for additional averaging, including integrating over all dimensions of the manifold, we give a class of examples that violate any such averaged condition.
We study algebraic type N spacetimes in the extended new massive gravity (NMG), considering both the Born-Infeld model (BI-NMG) and the model of NMG with any finite order curvature corrections. We show that for these spacetimes, the field equations of BI-NMG take the form of the massive (tensorial) Klein-Gordon type equation, just as it happens for ordinary NMG. This fact enables us to obtain the type N solution to BI-NMG, utilizing the general type N solution of NMG, earlier found in our work. We also obtain type N solutions to NMG with all finite order curvature corrections and show that, in…
In this article we extend a recent theorem proven by Hod (Phys. Lett. B, {\bf 727}, 345--348, 2013) to $n$-dimensional Einstein and Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theories, which gives an upper bound for the photon sphere radii of spherically symmetric black holes. As applications of these results we give a universal upper bound for the real part of quasinormal modes in the WKB limit and a universal lower bound for the position of the first relativistic image in the strong lensing regime produced by these type of black holes. For the axially-symmetric case, we also make some general comments (independe…
Spherically, plane, or hyperbolically symmetric spacetimes with an additional hypersurface orthogonal Killing vector are often called ``static'' spacetimes even if they contain regions where the Killing vector is non-timelike. It seems to be widely believed that an energy-momentum tenor for a matter field compatible with these spacetimes in general relativity is of the Hawking-Ellis type I everywhere. We show in arbitrary $n(\ge 3)$ dimensions that, contrary to popular belief, a matter field on a Killing horizon is not necessarily of type I but can be of type II. Such a type-II matter field on…
If universal quantum interaction is really connected with the coset structure of deformations of quantum states then the curvature of projective Hilbert state space should be observable. I discuss some approach to the measurement of curvature-dependent values.
We present explicit results for the product of all horizon areas for general rotating multi-charge black holes, both in asymptotically flat and asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetimes in four and higher dimensions. The expressions are universal, and depend only on the quantized charges, quantized angular momenta and the cosmological constant. If the latter is also quantized these universal results may provide a "looking glass" for probing the microscopics of general black holes.
In general relativity the parallel transfer of a vector around a closed curve in spacetime, or along two curves which together form a closed loop, usually results in a nonzero deficit angle between the vector's initial and final positions. We show that such holonomy in the McVittie spacetime, which represents a gravitating object imbedded in an expanding universe, can in principle be used to directly detect the expansion of the universe, for example by measuring changes in the components of a gyroscopic spin axis. Although such changes are of course small, they are large enough (\D S \sim 10^{…
We study the class of vacuum (Ricci flat) six-dimensional spacetimes admitting a non-degenerate multiple Weyl aligned null direction l, thus being of Weyl type II or more special. Subject to an additional assumption on the asymptotic fall-off of the Weyl tensor, we prove that these spacetimes can be completely classified in terms of the two eigenvalues of the (asymptotic) twist matrix of l and of a discrete parameter $U^0=\pm 1/2, 0$. All solutions turn out to be Kerr-Schild spacetimes of type D and reduce to a family of "generalized" Myers-Perry metrics (which include limits and analytic cont…
We present the explicit metric forms for higher dimensional vanishing scalar invariant (VSI) Lorentzian spacetimes. We note that all of the VSI spacetimes belong to the higher dimensional Kundt class. We determine all of the VSI spacetimes which admit a covariantly constant null vector, and we note that in general in higher dimensions these spacetimes are of Ricci type III and Weyl type III. The Ricci type N subclass is related to the chiral null models and includes the relativistic gyratons and the higher dimensional pp-wave spacetimes. The spacetimes under investigation are of particular int…
Theories of gravity with a preferred foliation usually display arbitrarily fast signal propagation, changing the black hole definition. A new inescapable barrier, the universal horizon, has been defined and many static and spherically symmetric examples have been studied in the literature. Here, we translate the usual definition of the universal horizon in terms of an optical scalar built with the preferred flow defined by the preferred spacetime foliation. The new expression has the advantages of being of quasilocal nature and independent of specific spacetime symmetries in order to be well d…
It is widely known that the primordial curvature perturbation $ζ$ has several universal properties in the infrared (IR) such as the soft theorem, which is also known as the consistency relation, and the conservation in time. They are valid in rather general single clock models of inflation. It has been argued that these universal properties are deeply related to the large gauge transformations in inflationary spacetime. However, the invariance under the large gauge transformations is not sufficient to show these IR properties. In this paper, we show that the locality condition is crucial to sh…
We report on a numerical study of gravitational waves undergoing gravitational collapse due to their self-interaction. We consider several families of asymptotically flat initial data which, similar to the well known Choptuik's discovery, can be fine-tuned between dispersal into empty space and collapse into a black hole. We find that near-critical spacetimes exhibit behavior similar to the collapse of scalar field: For different families of initial data, we observe universal "echoes" in the form of irregularly repeating approximate scaled copies of the same piece of spacetime.
We perform a rescaling analysis to analyze the future behavior of a class of $T^2$-symmetric vacuum spacetimes. We show that on the universal cover, there is $C^0$-convergence to a spatially homogeneous spacetime that does not satisfy the vacuum Einstein equations.
Is Cosmic Censorship special to General Relativity, or can it survive a violation of equivalence principle? Recent studies have shown that singularities in Lorentz violating Einstein-Aether (or Horava-Lifhsitz) theories can lie behind a universal horizon in simple black hole spacetimes. Even infinitely fast signals cannot escape these universal horizons. We extend this result, for an incompressible aether, to 3+1d dynamical or spinning spacetimes which possess inner killing horizons, and show that a universal horizon always forms in between the outer and (would-be) inner horizons. This finding…
Modern advances in transformation optics and electromagnetic metamaterials made possible experimental demonstrations of highly unusual curvilinear optical spaces, such as various geometries necessary for electromagnetic cloaking. Recently we demonstrated that mapping light intensity in a hyperbolic metamaterial may also model the flow of time in an effective (2+1) dimensional Minkowski spacetime. Curving such an effective spacetime creates experimental model of a toy big bang. Here we demonstrate that at low light levels this model may be used to emulate a fully covariant version of quantum me…
It is well-known \cite{mtbh} that {\em all} black hole solutions of General Relativity are of Petrov-type D. It may thus be expected that the spacetime of {\em physically realizable} spherical gravitational collapse is also of Petrov-type D. We show that a radially homothetic spacetime, {\em ie}, a spherically symmetric spacetime with hyper-surface orthogonal, radial, homothetic Killing vector, is of Petrov-type D. As has been argued in \cite{prl1}, it is a spacetime of {\em physically realizable} spherical collapse.
Within quantum-gravity approaches and beyond, different mechanisms for singularity resolution in black holes exist. Under a set of assumptions that we spell out in detail, these mechanisms leave their imprint in shadow images of spherically symmetric black holes. We find that even current EHT accuracy is sufficient to place nontrivial constraints on the scale of new physics within one modified spacetime, if the EHT measurement of M87* is combined with an independent measurement of the black-hole mass. In other spacetimes, increased accuracy is required that the next-generation EHT may deliver.…
