The aim of this paper is to construct a quantum effective action for gravitational fields by the effective potential method in quantum field theory. The minimum of the quantum effective action gives an equation of quantum fluctuations. We discuss the quantum fluctuation in the flat spacetime and in the Schwarzschild spacetime. It is shown that a baby spacetime may be created from a classical vacuum through a quantum fluctuation.
Based on a recent proposal for the gravitational entropy of free gravitational fields, we investigate the thermodynamic properties of black hole formation through gravitational collapse in the framework of the semitetrad 1+1+2 covariant formalism. In the simplest case of an Oppenheimer-Snyder-Datt collapse we prove that the change in gravitational entropy outside a collapsing body is related to the variation of the surface area of the body itself, even before the formation of horizons. As a result, we are able to relate the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of the black hole endstate to the variation…
Based on a recent proposal for the gravitational entropy of free gravitational fields, we investigate the thermodynamic properties of black hole formation through gravitational collapse in the framework of the semitetrad 1+1+2 covariant formalism. In the simplest case of an Oppenheimer-Snyder-Datt collapse we prove that the change in gravitational entropy outside a collapsing body is related to the variation of the surface area of the body itself, even before the formation of horizons. As a result, we are able to relate the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of the black hole endstate to the variation…
Quasi-universal relations connecting the tidal deformability and the quadrupole moment of individual neutron stars are predicted by theoretical computations, but have not been measured experimentally. However, such relations are employed during the interpretation of gravitational waves and, therefore, have a direct impact on the interpretation of real data. In this work, we study how quasi-universal relations can be tested and measured from gravitational wave signals connected to binary neutron star coalescences. We study a population of $120$ binary neutron star systems and find that Advanced…
It has recently been suggested that the gravitational dynamics could be obtained by requiring the action to be invariant under diffeomorphism transformations. We argue that the action constructed in usual way is automatically diffeomorphism invariant in nature, which thus invalidates this alternative perspective to obtain gravitational dynamics. Especially, we also show what is wrong with the technical derivation of gravitational dynamics in the alternative approach.
We analyze the effective action describing the linearised gravitational self-action for a classical superconducting string in a curved spacetime. It is shown that the divergent part of the effective action is equal to zero for the both Nambu-Goto and chiral superconducting string.
In a previous work we showed that, in a suitable setting, one can use diffeomorphism invariance in order to derive gravitational field equations from boundary terms of the gravitational action. Standing by our results we reply here to a recent comment questioning their validity.
The higher derivative gravitational theories exhibit new phenomena absent in General Relativity. One of them is the possible formation of the so called double layer which is the pure gravitational phenomenon and can be interpreted, in a sense, as the gravitational shock wave. In this paper we show how some very important features of the double layer equations of motion can be extracted straight from the least action principle.
A new scheme for computing dynamical evolutions and gravitational radiations for intermediate-mass-ratio inspirals (IMRIs) based on an effective one-body (EOB) dynamics plus Teukolsky perturbation theory is built in this paper. In the EOB framework, the dynamics essentially affects the resulted gravitational waveform for binary compact star system. This dynamics includes two parts. One is the conservative part which comes from effective one-body reduction. The other part is the gravitational back reaction which contributes to the shrinking process of the inspiral of binary compact star system.…
A method of calculation for the variational derivatives for gravitational actions in the pseudo-Riemannian case is proposed as a practical variant of the first order formalism with constraints. The method is then used to derive the metric field equations for a generic $f(R)$ model.
The gravitational action is not always additive in the usual sense. We provide a general prescription for the change in action that results when different portions of the boundary of a spacetime are topologically identified. We discuss possible implications for the superposition law of quantum gravity. We present a definition of `generalized additivity' which does hold for arbitrary spacetime composition.
In scalar-tensor theories, spontaneous scalarization is a phase transition that can occur in ultra-dense environments such as neutron stars. The scalar field develops a non-trivial configuration once the stars exceeds a compactness threshold. We recently pointed out that, if the scalar exhibits some additional coupling to matter, it could give rise to significantly different microphysics in these environments. In this work we study, at the non-perturbative level, a toy model in which the photon is given a large mass when spontaneous scalarization occurs. Our results demonstrate clearly the eff…
Our main aim in this paper is to promote the coframe variational method as a unified approach to derive field equations for any given gravitational action containing the algebraic functions of the scalars constructed from the Riemann curvature tensor and its contractions. We are able to derive a master equation which expresses the variational derivatives of the generalized gravitational actions in terms of the variational derivatives of its constituent curvature scalars. Using the Lagrange multiplier method relative to an orthonormal coframe, we investigate the variational procedures for modif…
We consider the gravitational sector of the superstring effective action with axion-matter couplings. The field equations are developed in the post-Newtonian scheme and approximate solutions for a spinning point mass and a cosmic string are presented. Furthermore, assuming vanishing axion mass and vanishing potential for the dilaton, we consider the gravitational radiation in the leading $O(α'^0)$ order. We find that the total luminosity of a radiative source has monopole and dipole components besides the standard quadrupole one. These components may possibly be checked in binary systems.
The coalescence of compact objects is one of the most promising sources of gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors, such as advanced LIGO and Virgo. Generically, com- pact objects in binaries are expected to be spinning with spin angular momenta misaligned with the orbital angular momentum, causing the orbital plane to precess. This precession adds rich structure to the gravitational waves, introducing such complexity that an analytic closed-form description has been unavailable until now. We here construct the first closed-form frequency- domain gravitational waveforms …
We discuss the issue initiated by Kuchař {\it et al}, of replacing the usual Hamiltonian constraint by alternative combinations of the gravitational constraints (scalar densities of arbitrary weight), whose Poisson brackets strongly vanish and cast the standard constraint-system for vacuum gravity into a form that generates a true Lie algebra. It is shown that any such combination---that satisfies certain reality conditions---may be derived from an action principle involving a single scalar field and a single Lagrange multiplier with a non--derivative coupling to gravity.
The Weiss variational principle in mechanics and classical field theory is a variational principle which allows displacements of the boundary. We review the Weiss variation in mechanics and classical field theory, and present a novel geometric derivation of the Weiss variation for the gravitational action: the Einstein-Hilbert action plus the Gibbons-Hawking-York boundary term. In particular, we use the first and second variation of area formulas (we present a derivation accessible to physicists in an appendix) to interpret and vary the Gibbons-Hawking-York boundary term. The Weiss variation f…
We present the concept of selective readout for broadband resonant mass gravitational wave detectors. This detection scheme is capable of specifically selecting the signal from the contributions of the vibrational modes sensitive to the gravitational waves, and efficiently rejecting the contribution from non gravitationally sensitive modes. Moreover this readout, applied to a dual detector, is capable to give an effective reduction of the back-action noise within the frequency band of interest. The overall effect is a significant enhancement in the predicted sensitivity, evaluated at the stand…
We study the sensitivity limits of a broadband gravitational-waves detector based on dual resonators such as nested spheres. We determine both the thermal and back-action noises when the resonators displacements are read-out with an optomechanical sensor. We analyze the contributions of all mechanical modes, using a new method to deal with the force-displacement transfer functions in the intermediate frequency domain between the two gravitational-waves sensitive modes associated with each resonator. This method gives an accurate estimate of the mechanical response, together with an evaluation …
We study the effective action for gravity obtained after the integration of scalar matter fields, using the local momentum representation based on the Riemann normal coordinates expansion. By considering this expansion around different space-time points, we also compute the non-local terms together with the more usual divergent ones. We discuss the applicability of our results to the calculation of particle production rates in cosmological backgrounds and compare this method with the traditional Bogolyubov transformations.
Higher-order corrections of Einstein-Hilbert action of general relativity can be recovered by imposing the existence of a Noether symmetry to a class of theories of gravity where Ricci scalar R and its d'Alembertian $\Box R$ are present. In several cases, it is possible to get exact cosmological solutions or, at least, to simplify dynamics by recovering constants of motion. The main result is that a Noether vector seems to rule the presence of higher-order corrections of gravitaty.
We give a prescription for constructing a Lanczos potential for a cosmological model which is a purely gravitational perturbation of a Friedman-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker space-time. For the radiation equation of state, we find the Lanczos potential explicitly via Fourier transforms. As an application, we follow up a suggestion of Penrose and propose a definition of gravitational entropy for these cosmologies. With this definition, the gravitational entropy initially is finite if and only if the initial Weyl tensor is finite.
The Penrose method for constructing spherical impulsive gravitational waves is investigated in detail, including alternative spatial sections and an arbitrary cosmological constant. The resulting waves include those that are generated by a snapping cosmic string. The method is used to construct an explicit exact solution of Einstein's equations describing the collision of two nonaligned cosmic strings in a Minkowski background which snap at their point of collision.
General relativity is derived from an action which is quadratic in the covariant derivative of certain spinor one-form gravitational potentials. Either a pair of 2-component spinor one-forms or a single Dirac spinor one-form can be employed. The metric is a quadratic function of these spinor one-forms. In the 2-component spinor formulation the action differs from the usual chiral action for general relativity by a total differential. In the Dirac spinor formulation the action is the real part of the former one. The Hamiltonian is related to the ones in positive energy proofs and spinorial quas…
We present a detailed examination of the variational principle for metric general relativity as applied to a ``quasilocal'' spacetime region $\M$ (that is, a region that is both spatially and temporally bounded). Our analysis relies on the Hamiltonian formulation of general relativity, and thereby assumes a foliation of $\M$ into spacelike hypersurfaces $Σ$. We allow for near complete generality in the choice of foliation. Using a field--theoretic generalization of Hamilton--Jacobi theory, we define the quasilocal stress-energy-momentum of the gravitational field by varying the action with res…
Strong-field gravitational plane waves are often represented in either the Rosen or Brinkmann forms. These forms are related by a coordinate transformation, so they should describe essentially the same physics, but the two forms treat polarization states quite differently. Both deal well with linear polarizations, but there is a qualitative difference in the way they deal with circular, elliptic, and more general polarization states. In this article we will describe a general algorithm for constructing arbitrary polarization states in the Rosen form.
We present an alternative nonconservative gravitational theory based on the Herglotz variational principle in a fully covariant form. The present model may be seen as an improvement of the theory proposed in Ref. [Lazo et al, Phys. Rev. D 95, 101501 (2017)], whose resulting theory is meaningful just in particular coordinate systems. In the present work, we report a new theory that is free from such a restriction. It is also obtained using the Herglotz variational principle and by taking advantage of the restricted equivalence between Lagrangian functions in the scope of such action principle. …
We have proposed previously a method for constructing self-conjugate Hamiltonians H_eta in the eta-representation with a flat scalar product to describe the dynamics of Dirac particles in arbitrary gravitational fields. In this paper, we prove that, for block-diagonal metrics, the Hamiltonians H_eta can be obtained, in particular, using "reduced" parts of Dirac Hamiltonians, i.e. expressions for Dirac Hamiltonians derived using tetrad vectors in the Schwinger gauge without or with a few summands with bispinor connectivities. Based on these results, we propose a modified method for constructing…
The divergences of the gravitational action are analyzed for spacetimes that are asymptotically anti-de Sitter and asymptotically flat. The gravitational action is rendered finite using a local counterterm prescription, and the relation of this method to the traditional reference spacetime is discussed. For AdS, an iterative procedure is devised that determines the counterterms efficiently. For asymptotically flat space, we use a different method to derive counterterms which are sufficient to remove divergences in most cases.
This note suggests a generalization of the Born--Infeld action (1932) on case of electroweak and gravitational fields in four-dimensional spacetime. The action is constructed from Dirac matrices, $γ_a$, and dimensionless covariant derivatives, $π_{a} = - i\ell \nabla_{a}$, where $\ell$ is of order of magnitude of Planck's length. By a postulate, the action possesses additional symmetry with respect to global transformations of the Lorentz group imposed on pairs ($γ_{a}$, $π_{a}$). It's shown, that parameter of the Lorentz group is associated with a constant value of the electroweak potential a…
I prove an old unsolved conjecture, the hard part of its obvious sufficiency, namely that all identically conserved symmetric two-tensors are necessarily metric variations of invariant actions, thus sparing the world more alternative gravity theories. The proof is reasonably simple, if perhaps a physicist's.
We use the recently discovered universality of Einstein equations in the first order formalism to suggest a positive definite Euclidean action. Possible implications for quantum gravity are considered. We discuss the Hawking and Coleman approach to the vanishing of the cosmological constant by using the new action and find that the cosmological constant is probably zero. A possible scenario for obtaining such an action from superstring field theory is discussed.
The vacuum action for the gravitational field admits a known expansion in powers of the Ricci tensor with nonlocal operator coefficients (form factors). We show that going over to a different basis of curvature invariants makes possible a partial summation of this expansion. Only the form factors of the Weyl-tensor invariants need be calculated. The full action is then uniquely recovered to all orders from the knowledge of the trace anomaly. We present an explicit expression for the partially summed action, and point out simplifications resulting in the vertex functions. An application to the …
The existence of time machines, understood as spacetime constructions exhibiting physically realised closed timelike curves (CTCs), would raise fundamental problems with causality and challenge our current understanding of classical and quantum theories of gravity. In this paper, we investigate three proposals for time machines which share some common features: cosmic strings in relative motion, where the conical spacetime appears to allow CTCs; colliding gravitational shock waves, which in Aichelburg-Sexl coordinates imply discontinuous geodesics; and the superluminal propagation of light in …
An explicit AdS/CFT correspondence is shown for the Lie group $SO(4,2)$. The Lie symmetry structures allow for the construction of two physical theories through the tools of Cartan geometry. One is a gravitational theory that has anti-de Sitter symmetry. The other is also a gravitational theory but is conformally symmetric and lives on 8-dimensional biconformal space. These "extra" four dimensions have the degrees of freedom used to construct a Yang-Mills theory. The two theories, based on AdS or conformal symmetry, have a natural correspondence in the context of their Lie algebras alone where…
In the study of horizon thermodynamics and emergent gravity two natural expressions for energy, E= 2 TS (equipartition energy) and E=TS (Noether energy) arise which differ by a factor 2. I clarify the role of these two expressions in different contexts and show how E=TS is also closely related to the Noether charge arising from the boundary term of the Einstein-Hilbert action.
A general scheme of constructing scalar-tensor equivalents to modified gravitational actions are studied using the algebra of exterior differential forms and the first order formalism that allows an independent connection and coframe. By introducing appropriate constraints on the connection, pseudo-Riemannian cases as well as non-Riemannian cases are discussed for various gravitational models. The issue of the dynamical degree of freedom for the resulting scalar fields is discussed at the level of the field equations. Explicit scalar-tensor equivalents for gravitational models based on $f(R)$ …
We calculate parameters in the low energy gravitational effective action and the entanglement entropy in a wide class of theories characterized by improved ultraviolet (UV) behavior. These include i) local and non-local Lorentz invariant theories in which inverse propagator is modified by higher-derivative terms and ii) theories described by non-Lorentz invariant Lifshitz type field operators. We demonstrate that the induced cosmological constant, gravitational couplings and the entropy are sensitive to the way the theory is modified in UV. For non-Lorentz invariant theories the induced gravit…
A modified gravitational action is considered which involves the quantity $F_{μν}=\partial_μΓ_ν-\partial_νΓ_μ$, where $Γ_μ=Γ^α_{μα}$. Since $Γ_μ$ transforms like a U(1) gauge field under coordinate transformations terms such as $F^{μν}F_{μν}$ are invariant under coordinate transformations. If such a term is added to the usual gravitational action the resulting field equations, obtained from a Palatini variation, are the Einstein-Proca equations. The vector field can be coupled to point charges or to a complex scalar density of weight $ie$, where $e$ is the charge of the field. If this scalar d…
Motivated by quantum mechanical considerations we earlier suggested an alternative action for discretised quantum gravity which has a dimension of length. It is the so called "linear" action. The proposed action is a "square root" of the classical area action in gravity and has in front of the action a new constant of dimension one. Here we shall consider the continuous limit of the discretised linear action. We shall demonstrate that in the modified theory of gravity there appear space-time regions of the Schwarzschild radius scale which are unreachable by test particles. These regions are lo…
In this paper we investigate gauged Wess-Zumino-Witten models for space-time groups as gravitational theories, following the trend of recent work by Anabalon, Willison and Zanelli. We discuss the field equations in any dimension and study in detail the simplest case of two space-time dimensions and gauge group SO(2,1). For this model we study black hole solutions and we calculate their mass and entropy which resulted in a null value for both.
We argue that quantum gravity theories should involve constructing a quantum theory on non-Cauchy hypersurfaces and suggest that the hypersurface direction should be the same as the direction of the effective non-gravitational force field at a point. We start with a short review of works which support this idea and then we foliate spacetime along an effective non-gravitational force field direction. Next we discuss the implication of this foliation on the expected properties of quantum gravity. We also discuss the vagueness caused by constructing any quantum theory when using non-Cauchy foliat…
We consider the full effective theory for quantum gravity at second order in curvature including non-local terms. We show that the theory contains two new degrees of freedom beyond the massless graviton: namely a massive spin-2 ghost and a massive scalar field. Furthermore, we show that it is impossible to fine-tune the parameters of the effective action to eliminate completely the classical spin-2 ghost because of the non-local terms in the effective action. Being a classical field, it is not clear anyway that this ghost is problematic. It simply implies a repulsive contribution to Newton's p…
We discuss the effective potential of the conformal factor in the effective average action approach to Quantum Einstein Gravity. Without invoking any truncation or other approximations we show that if the theory has has a non-Gaussian ultraviolet fixed point and is asymptotically safe the potential has a characteristic behavior near the origin. We argue that this characteristic behavior has already been observed in numerical simulations within the Causal Dynamical Triangulation approach.
The temperature distribution in presence of gravity, as measured by a local observer, is given by the Tolman expression. Here I derive the same only from the Gibbon's-Hawking-York surface term. In this process no explicit use of Einstein's equations of motion is done. Therefore, the present one is an off-shell analysis. Finally I discuss the importance and various implications of the derivation.
Microscopic black holes are sensitive to higher dimension operators in the gravitational action. We compute the influence of these operators on the Schwarzschild solution using perturbation theory. All (time reversal invariant) operators of dimension six are included (dimension four operators don't alter the Schwarzschild solution). Corrections to the relation between the Hawking temperature and the black hole mass are found. The entropy is calculated using the Gibbons-Hawking prescription for the Euclidean path integral and using naive thermodynamic reasoning. These two methods agree, however…
We consider the perturbation of the Schwarzschild solution by the perimeter action. The asymptotic behaviour of the solution at infinity and at the horizon are calculated and analysed in the first approximation. The perturbation is characterised by the ratio of the Plank length to the Schwarzschild radius. It is demonstrated that in the modified theory appear space-time regions of the Schwarzschild radius scale that are unreachable by test particles. These regions are located in the places where standard theory of gravity has singularities.
We describe a simple way of obtaining horizon entropy using the approach based on the Virasoro algebra and central charge. We show that the Virasoro algebra defined by the Noether currents corresponding to the surface term of gravitational action, for the diffeomorphisms which leave the horizon structure unaltered, has a central extension that directly leads to the horizon entropy. In this approach there are no ambiguities in the calculation of the central charge. We explain why this approach is physically well motivated and could provide greater insight into the nature of horizon entropy.
We give a general derivation of the gravitational hamiltonian starting from the Einstein-Hilbert action, keeping track of all surface terms. The surface term that arises in the hamiltonian can be taken as the definition of the `total energy', even for spacetimes that are not asymptotically flat. (In the asymptotically flat case, it agrees with the usual ADM energy.) We also discuss the relation between the euclidean action and the hamiltonian when there are horizons of infinite area (e.g. acceleration horizons) as well as the usual finite area black hole horizons. Acceleration horizons seem to…
We study the imaginary part of the Lorentzian gravitational action for bounded regions, as described in arXiv:1301.7041. By comparing to a Euclidean calculation, we explain the agreement between the formula for this imaginary part and the formula for black hole entropy. We also clarify the topological structure of the imaginary part in Lovelock gravity. We then evaluate the action's imaginary part for some special regions. These include cylindrical slabs spanning the exterior of a stationary black hole spacetime, 'maximal diamonds' in various symmetric spacetimes, as well as local near-horizon…
This paper compares three different methods about computing joint terms in on-shell action of gravity, which are identifying the joint term by the variational principle in Dirichlet boundary condition, treating the joint term as the limit contribution of smooth boundary and finding the joint term by local SO(1,$d-1$) transformation. In general metric gravitational theory, we show that the differences between these joint terms are some variational invariants under fixed boundary condition. We also give an explicit condition to judge the existence of joint term determined by variational principl…
It is often argued that {\it all the information of a gravitational theory is encoded in the surface term of the action}; which means one can find several physical quantities just from the surface term without incorporating the bulk part of the action. This has been observed in various instances; e.g. derivation of the Einstein's equations, surface term calculated on the horizon leads to entropy, etc. Here I investigate the role of it in the context of entropy function and entropy of extremal near horizon black holes. Considering only the Gibbons-Hawking-York (GHY) surface term to define an en…
