The constructive gravity programme applied to electrodynamics with vacuum birefringence yields the---up to unknown gravitational constants---unique compatible gravity theory for the underlying non-metric geometry. Starting from a perturbative variant of this procedure, we solve the resulting gravitational field equations for the geometry perturbation and point out the non-metric refinements to the linear Schwarzschild and the gravitational wave solution.
We derive the gravitational dynamics of the tensorial geometry which underlies the most general linear theory of electrodynamics that features weak birefringence in vacuo. This derivation is performed by way of gravitational closure, which is a mechanism that employs the causal structure of any canonically quantizable matter dynamics on some tensorial spacetime geometry in order to derive canonical dynamics for the latter. The resulting eleven-parameter family of weak gravitational field equations allows to predict where vacuum birefringence will occur, if there is any.
Exact electromagnetic wave solutions to Maxwell equations on anisotropic Bianchi I cosmological spacetime backgrounds are studied. The waves evolving on Bianchi I spacetimes exhibit birefringence (associated to linear polarization) and dispersion. The particular case of a vacuum--dominated anisotropic Universe, which reproduces a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker Universe (for late times) while for earlier times it matches a Kasner Universe, is studied. The electromagnetic waves do not, in general, follow null geodesics. This produces a modification of the cosmological redshift, which is now dependen…
The most general classical electrodynamics which still respect the linear superposition principle but allow for otherwise arbitrary birefringence require, and imply, a refined spacetime geometry described by a fourth-rank tensor field. Canonical gravitational dynamics for this geometry, if required to co-evolve in causally consistent fashion with the electromagnetic field, were shown to be constructively determined by gravitational closure of the birefringent electromagnetic field equations. For weak gravitational fields of the resulting birefringent refinement of classical Einstein-Maxwell th…
We present the second-order gravitational dynamics for a spacetime inhabited by matter fields which feature vacuum birefringence. The derivation follows a perturbative variant of the covariant constructive gravity program, ensuring diffeomorphism invariance of gravity and causal compatibility of matter theory and gravity. A subsequent spatio-temporal split of this theory reveals the presence of unphysical artifacts, which are cured by imposing constraints on the gravitational constants, reducing their number from ten to seven. Within this sector, we derive the gravitational radiation emitted b…
Electromagnetic waves propagation on either rotating or anisotropic spacetime backgrounds (such as Kerr and Gödel metrics, or Bianchi-I metric) produce a reduction of the magnitude of Casimir forces between plates. These curved spacetimes behave as chiral or birefringent materials producing dispersion of electromagnetic waves, in such a way that right- and left-circularly polarized light waves propagate with different phase velocities. Results are explicitly calculated for discussed cases. The difference on the wavevectors of the two polarized electromagnetic waves produces an abatement of a C…
The propagation of gravitational waves can reveal fundamental features of the structure of spacetime. For instance, differences in the propagation of gravitational-wave polarizations would be a smoking gun for parity violations in the gravitational sector, as expected from birefringent theories like Chern-Simons gravity. Here we look for evidence of amplitude birefringence in the third catalog of detections by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory and Virgo through the use of birefringent templates inspired by dynamical Chern-Simons gravity. From $71$ binary-black-hole signal…
We consider a massless scalar field propagating in a weakly curved spacetime whose metric is a solution to the linearized Einstein field equations. The spacetime is assumed to be stationary and asymptotically flat, but no other symmetries are imposed -- the spacetime can rotate and deviate strongly from spherical symmetry. We prove that the late-time behavior of the scalar field is identical to what it would be in a spherically-symmetric spacetime: it decays in time according to an inverse power-law, with a power determined by the angular profile of the initial wave packet (Price falloff theor…
We calculate the self-force experienced by a point scalar charge, a point electric charge, and a point mass moving in a weakly curved spacetime characterized by a time-independent Newtonian potential. The self-forces are calculated by first computing the retarded Green's functions for scalar, electromagnetic, and (linearized) gravitational fields in the weakly curved spacetime, and then evaluating an integral over the particle's past world line. In all three cases the self-force contains both a conservative and a nonconservative (radiation-reaction) part. The conservative part of the self-forc…
It is a standard fact that trapped or marginally trapped surfaces are not visible from conformal infinity, under the usual set of conditions on matter fields and the conformal completion, provided that the cosmological constant is non-positive. In this note we show that the situation is more delicate in the presence of a positive cosmological constant: we present examples of visible marginally trapped surfaces, and we provide a set of natural conditions which guarantee non-visibility.
We consider weakly regular Gowdy-symmetric spacetimes on T3 satisfying the Einstein-Euler equations of general relativity, and we solve the initial value problem when the initial data set has bounded variation, only, so that the corresponding spacetime may contain impulsive gravitational waves as well as shock waves. By analyzing, both, future expanding and future contracting spacetimes, we establish the existence of a global foliation by spacelike hypersurfaces so that the time function coincides with the area of the surfaces of symmetry and asymptotically approaches infinity in the expanding…
In this paper, the null geodesics and gravitational lensing in a nonsingular spacetime are investigated. According to the nature of the null geodesics, the spacetime is divided into several cases. In the weak deflection limit, we find the influence of the nonsingularity parameter $q$ on the positions and magnifications of the images is negligible. In the strong deflection limit, the coefficients and observables for the gravitational lensing in a nonsingular black hole background and a weakly nonsingular spacetime are obtained. Comparing these results, we find that, in a weakly nonsingular spac…
We find an explicit solution of the source free Maxwell equations in a generalized Kerr-NUT-(A)dS spacetime in all dimensions. This solution is obtained as a linear combination of the closed conformal Killing-Yano tensor $h_{ab}$, which is present in such a spacetime, and a derivative of the primary Killing vector, associated with $h_{ab}$. For the vanishing cosmological constant the obtained solution reduces to the Wald's electromagnetic field generated from the primary Killing vector.
This paper establishes novel bounds for Gowdy-symmetric Einstein-Euler spacetimes and completes the analysis, initiated by LeFloch and Rendall, of the global areal foliation for these spacetimes. We thus consider the initial value problem for the Einstein-Euler equations under the assumption of Gowdy symmetry. We establish that, for the maximal Cauchy development of future contracting initial data, the area of the group orbits approaches zero toward the future. This property holds as one approaches the future boundary of the spacetime, provided a geometry invariant associated with the Gowdy sy…
We demonstrate separability of the Dirac equation in weakly charged rotating black hole spacetimes in all dimensions. The electromagnetic field of the black hole is described by a test field approximation, with vector potential proportional to the primary Killing vector field. It is shown that the demonstrated separability can be intrinsically characterized by the existence of a complete set of mutually commuting first order symmetry operators generated from the principal Killing-Yano tensor. The presented results generalize the results on integrability of charged particle motion and separabil…
We investigate the future asymptotic behavior of Gowdy spacetimes on T3, when the metric satisfies weak regularity conditions, so that the metric coefficients (in suitable coordinates) are only in the Sobolev space H1 or have even weaker regularity. The authors recently introduced this class of spacetimes in the broader context of T2 symmetric spacetimes and established the existence of a global foliation by spacelike hypersurfaces when the time function is chosen to be the area of the surfaces of symmetry. In the present paper, we identify the global causal geometry of these spacetimes and, i…
In a 4-dimensional (4D) weak field geometry governed by the linearized Einstein's equations and sourced primarily by a static, spatially localized, but otherwise arbitrary mass density $T_{00}$, it is known that the leading order tail part of the Green's functions of the minimally coupled massless scalar, Lorenz gauge photon, and de Donder gauge graviton at late times are not only time translation symmetric, but also space-translation and spherically symmetric. Only the monopole moment of the matter source is responsible for the late-time tail of the Green's functions. We provide evidence, in …
The resonant mode spectrum of the Kerr-Newman spacetime is presently unknown. These modes, called the quasinormal modes, play a central role in determining the stability of Kerr-Newman black holes and their response to perturbations. We present a new formalism, generalized from time-independent perturbation theory in quantum mechanics, for calculating the quasinormal mode frequencies of weakly charged Kerr-Newman spacetimes of arbitrary spin. Our method makes use of an original technique for applying perturbation theory to zeroth-order solutions that are not square- integrable, and it can be a…
We study charged particle motion in weakly charged higher dimensional black holes. To describe the electromagnetic field we use a test field approximation and use the higher dimensional Kerr-NUT-(A)dS metric as a background geometry. It is shown that for a special configuration of the electromagnetic field the equations of motion of charged particles are completely integrable. The vector potential of such a field is proportional to one of the Killing vectors (called primary Killing vector) from the `Killing tower' of symmetry generating objects which exists in the background geometry. A free c…
Weakly nonlinear dynamics in anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetimes is reviewed, keeping an eye on the AdS instability conjecture and focusing on the resonant approximation that accurately captures in a simplified form the long-term evolution of small initial data. Topics covered include turbulent and regular motion, dynamical recurrences analogous to the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam phenomena in oscillator chains, and relations between AdS dynamics and nonrelativistic nonlinear Schrodinger equations in harmonic potentials. Special mention is given to the way the classical dynamics of weakly nonlinear strongly r…
We construct the spacetime in the vicinity of a general isolated, rotating, charged black hole. The black hole is modeled as a weakly isolated horizon, and we use the characteristic initial value formulation of the Einstein equations with the horizon as an inner boundary. The spacetime metric and other geometric fields are expanded in a power series in a radial coordinate away from the horizon by solving the characteristic field equations in the Newman-Penrose formalism. This is the first in a series of papers which investigate the near horizon geometry and its physical applications using the …
Marginally outer trapped surfaces are widely considered as the best quasi-local replacements for event horizons of black holes in General Relativity. However, this equivalence is far from being proved, even in stationary and static situations. In this paper we study an important aspect of this equivalence, namely whether classic uniqueness theorems of static black holes can be extended to static spacetimes containing weakly outer trapped surfaces or not. Our main theorem states that, under reasonable hypotheses, a static spacetime satisfying the null energy condition and containing an asymptot…
Using the coherent state functional integral expression of the partition function, we show that the sine-Gordon model on an analogue curved spacetime arises as the effective quantum field theory for phase fluctuations of a weakly imperfect Bose gas on an incompressible background superfluid flow when these fluctuations are restricted to a subspace of the single-particle Hilbert space. We consider bipartitions of the single-particle Hilbert space relevant to experiments on ultracold bosonic atomic or molecular gases, including, e.g., restriction to high- or low-energy sectors of the dynamics an…
All modern routes leading to a quantum theory of gravity -- i.e., perturbative quantum gravitational one-loop exact correction to the global chiral current in the standard model, string theory, and perhaps even loop quantum gravity -- require supplementing the Einstein-Hilbert action with a parity-violating Chern-Simons term. Such a term leads to amplitude-birefringent gravitational wave propagation: i.e., one (circular) polarization state amplified with propagation while the other is attenuated. The proposed Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is capable of observing gravitational wave …
We study the occurrence of shell crossing in spherical weakly charged dust collapse in the presence of a non-vanishing cosmological constant. We find that shell crossing always occurs from generic time-symmetric regular initial data, near the center of the matter configuration. For non-time-symmetric initial data, the occurrence---or lack thereof---of shell crossing is determined by the initial velocity profile, for a given mass and charge distribution. Physically reasonable initial data inevitably leads to shell crossing (near the center) before the minimum bounce radius is reached.
In this paper using the third-order WKB approximation, a numerical method devised by Schutz, Will and Iyer, we investigate the quasinormal frequencies of the scalar field in the background of five-dimensional Lovelock black hole. We find that the ultraviolet correction to Einstein theory in the Lovelock theory makes the scalar field decay more slowly and makes the scalar field oscillate more quickly, and the cosmological constant makes the scalar field decay more slowly and makes the scalar field oscillate more slowly in Lovelock black hole backgroud. On the other hand we also find that quasin…
Under weak regularity assumptions, only, we develop a fully geometric theory of vacuum Einstein spacetimes with T2 symmetry, establish the global well-posedness of the initial value problem for Einstein's field equations, and investigate the global causal structure of the constructed spacetimes. Our weak regularity assumptions are the minimal ones allowing to give a meaning to the Einstein equations under the assumed symmetry and to solve the initial value problem. First of all, we introduce a frame adapted to the symmetry in which each Christoffel symbol can be checked to belong to some Lp sp…
We review recent work on the Einstein equations of general relativity when the curvature is defined in a weak sense. Weakly regular spacetimes are constructed, in which impulsive gravitational waves, as well as shock waves, propagate.
The objective of the present paper is to study 4-dimensional weakly Ricci symmetric spacetimes $(WRS)_4$ with non-zero constant Ricci scalar. We prove that such a $(WRS)_4$ satisfying $F(R)$-gravity field equations represents a perfect fluid with vanishing vorticity. Some energy conditions are studied under the current setting to constrain the functional form of $F(R)$. We examine a couple of popular toy models in $F(R)$-gravity, $F(R)=e^{αR}$ where $α$ is constant and $F(R)=R-β\tanh(R)$, $β$ is a constant. We also find that the equation of state parameter (EoS) in both models supports the uni…
We study the nonlinear evolution of a weakly perturbed anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetime by solving numerically the four-dimensional spherically symmetric Einstein-massless-scalar field equations with negative cosmological constant. Our results suggest that AdS spacetime is unstable under arbitrarily small generic perturbations. We conjecture that this instability is triggered by a resonant mode mixing which gives rise to diffusion of energy from low to high frequencies.
We study the linear polarization from the accretion disk around weakly and strongly naked Janis-Newman-Winicour singularities. We consider an analytical toy model of thin magnetized fluid ring orbiting in the equatorial plane and emitting synchrotron radiation. The observable polarized images are calculated and compared to the Schwarzschild black hole for physical parameters compatible with the radio source M87. For small inclination angles the direct images of the weakly naked singularities closely mimic the Schwarzschild black hole. The deviation in the polarization properties increases if w…
The coupling of the electromagnetic field directly with gravitational gauge fields leads to new physical effects that can be tested using astronomical data. Here we consider a particular case for closer scrutiny, a specific nonminimal coupling of torsion to electromagnetism, which enters into a metric-affine geometry of space-time. We show that under the assumption of this nonminimal coupling, spacetime is birefringent in the presence of such a gravitational field. This leads to the depolarization of light emitted from extended astrophysical sources. We use polarimetric data of the magnetic wh…
We define the class of weakly regular spacetimes with T2 symmetry, and investigate their global geometry structure. We formulate the initial value problem for the Einstein vacuum equations with weak regularity, and establish the existence of a global foliation by the level sets of the area R of the orbits of symmetry, so that each leaf can be regarded as an initial hypersurface. Except for the flat Kasner spacetimes which are known explicitly, R takes all positive values. Our weak regularity assumptions only require that the gradient of R is continuous while the metric coefficients belong to t…
In a general-relativistic spacetime (Lorentzian manifold), gravitational lensing can be characterized by a lens map, in analogy to the lens map of the quasi-Newtonian approximation formalism. The lens map is defined on the celestial sphere of the observer (or on part of it) and it takes values in a two-dimensional manifold representing a two-parameter family of worldlines. In this article we use methods from differential topology to characterize global properties of the lens map. Among other things, we use the mapping degree (also known as Brouwer degree) of the lens map as a tool for characte…
We investigate the late-time asymptotics of future expanding, polarized vacuum Einstein spacetimes with T2-symmetry on T3, which, by definition, admit two spacelike Killing fields. Our main result is the existence of a stable asymptotic regime within this class, that is, we provide here a full description of the late-time asymptotics of the solutions to the Einstein equations when the initial data set is close to the asymptotic regime. Our proof is based on several energy functionals with lower order corrections (as is standard for such problems) and the derivation of a simplified model which …
We explicitly prove that a class of finite quantum gravitational theories (in odd as well as in even dimension) is actually a range of anomaly-free conformally invariant theories in the spontaneously broken phase of the conformal Weyl symmetry. At classical level we show how the Weyl conformal invariance is likely able to tame the spacetime singularities that plague not only Einstein gravity, but also local and weakly non-local higher derivative theories. This latter statement is rigorously proved by a singularity theorem that applies to a large class of weakly non-local theories. Following th…
The superradiant instability modes of ultralight massive vector bosons are studied for weakly charged rotating black holes in Einstein--Maxwell gravity (the Kerr--Newman solution) and low-energy heterotic string theory (the Kerr--Sen black hole). We show that in both these cases, the corresponding massive vector (Proca) equations can be fully separated, exploiting the hidden symmetry present in these spacetimes. The resultant ordinary differential equations are solved numerically to find the most unstable modes of the Proca field in the two backgrounds and compared to the vacuum (Kerr black ho…
We show that a class of finite quantum non-local gravitational theories is conformally invariant at classical as well as at quantum level. This is actually a range of conformal anomaly-free theories in the spontaneously broken phase of the Weyl symmetry. At classical level we show how the Weyl conformal invariance is able to tame all the spacetime singularities that plague not only Einstein gravity, but also local and weakly non-local higher derivative theories. The latter statement is proved by a singularity theorem that applies to a large class of weakly non-local theories. Therefore, we are…
We propose a CFT unitary description of the gravitational collapse. The starting point is the model of a black hole in AdS proposed by Maldacena in arXiv: 0106112 [hep-th]. We show that by proposing a two-copies version of the AdS/CFT conjecture, the process of formation of black holes so as other spacetimes with horizons may be described as an unitary process in the dual field theory. In doing this, we construct a well defined framework to describe general spacetimes as entangled states, in terms of the spectrum of states on the exact Anti-de-Sitter background. As application, we show how the…
We analyse spacetimes with a conformal scalar field source, a cosmological constant and a quartic self-interaction term for the scalar field. We also consider additional matter contents in the form of Maxwell and Yang-Mills fields or radiation fluids. Existence theorems for weakly asymptotically flat spacetimes are given. We give a generalisation of Bekenstein's result [Ann. Phys. 82, 535 (1974)] and use it to derive existence theorems for spacetimes that contain an isotropic singularity. The results are combined to suggest a mathematical setup for Penrose's CCC scenario using a conformal scal…
The late-time tails of a massive scalar field in the spacetime of black holes are studied numerically. Previous analytical results for a Schwarzschild black hole are confirmed: The late-time behavior of the field as recorded by a static observer is given by $ψ(t)\sim t^{-5/6}\sin [ω(t)\times t]$, where $ω(t)$ depends weakly on time. This result is carried over to the case of a Kerr black hole. In particular, it is found that the power-law index of -5/6 depends on neither the multipole mode $\ell$ nor on the spin rate of the black hole $a/M$. In all black hole spacetimes, massive scalar fields …
Semiclassical Einstein-Langevin equations for arbitrary small metric perturbations conformally coupled to a massless quantum scalar field in a spatially flat cosmological background are derived. Use is made of the fact that for this problem the in-in or closed time path effective action is simply related to the Feynman and Vernon influence functional which describes the effect of the ``environment'', the quantum field which is coarse grained here, on the ``system'', the gravitational field which is the field of interest. This leads to identify the dissipation and noise kernels in the in-in eff…
In this paper, we investigate the fluid/gravity correspondence in spacetime with general non-rotating weakly isolated horizon. With the help of Petrov-like boundary condition and large mean curvature limit, we show that the dual hydrodynamical system is described by a generalized forced incompressible Navier-Stocks equation. Specially, for stationary black holes or those spacetime with some asymptotically stationary conditions, such a system reduces to a standard forced Navier-Stocks system.
Many states of linear real scalar quantum fields (in particular Reeh-Schlieder states) on flat as well as curved spacetime are entangled on spacelike separated local algebras of observables. It has been argued that this entanglement can be "harvested" by a pair of so-called particle detectors, for example singularly or non-locally coupled quantum mechanical harmonic oscillator Unruh detectors. In an attempt to avoid such imperfect coupling, we analyse a model-independent local and covariant entanglement harvesting protocol based on the local probes of a recently proposed measurement theory of …
We hereby study the properties of a large class of weakly nonlocal gravitational theories around the (anti-) de Sitter spacetime background. In particular, we explicitly prove that the kinetic operator for the graviton field has the same structure as the one in Einstein-Hilbert theory around any maximally symmetric spacetime. Therefore, the perturbative spectrum is the same of standard general relativity, while the propagator on any maximally symmetric spacetime is a mere generalization of the one from Einstein's gravity derived and extensively studied in several previous papers. At quantum le…
