In this paper, we investigate the generalized covariant entropy bound in the theory where the Einstein gravity is perturbed by the higher-order Lovelock terms. After replacing the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy with the Jacobson-Myers entropy and introducing two reasonable physical assumptions, we showed that the corresponding generalized covariant entropy bound is satisfied under a higher-order approximation of the perturbation from the higher-order Lovelock terms. Our result implies that the Jacobson-Myers entropy strictly obeys the entropy bound under the perturbation level, and the generalized second law of Lanczos-Lovelock gravity is also satisfied when the Einstein gravity is perturbed by the higher-order Lovelock terms.
We derive boundary terms appropriate for the general Lanczos-Lovelock action on a null boundary, when Dirichlet boundary conditions are imposed. We believe that these boundary terms have been derived for the first time in the literature. In this derivation, we rely only on the structure of the boundary variation of the action for Lanczos-Lovelock gravity. We also provide the null boundary term for Gauss-Bonnet gravity separately.
We present a novel derivation of the boundary term for the action in Lanczos-Lovelock gravity, starting from the boundary contribution in the variation of the Lanczos-Lovelock action. The derivation presented here is straightforward, i.e., one starts from the Lanczos-Lovelock action principle and the action itself dictates the boundary structure and hence the boundary term one needs to add to the action to make it well-posed. It also gives the full structure of the contribution at the boundary of the complete action, enabling us to read off the degrees of freedom to be fixed at the boundary, t…
A study of Universal thermodynamics is done in Lanczos-Lovelock gravity. The Universe is chosen as FRW model bounded by apparent or event horizon. The unified first law is examined, assuming extended Hawking temperature on the horizon. As a result there is a modification of Bekenstein entropy on the horizons. Further the validity of generalized second law of thermodynamics and thermodynamical equilibrium are also investigated for perfect fluid (with constant equation of state), modified chaplygin gas model and holographic dark energy model.
It has been shown in an earlier work [arXiv:1303.1535] that there exists a pair of canonically conjugate variables $(f^{ab},N^a_{bc})$ in general relativity which also act as thermodynamically conjugate variables on any horizon. In particular their variations $(f^{bc}δN^a_{bc}, N^a_{bc}δf^{bc})$, which occur in the surface term of the Einstein-Hilbert action, when integrated over a null surface, have direct correspondence with $(SδT,TδS)$ where $(T,S)$ are the temperature and entropy. We generalize these results to Lanczos-Lovelock models in this paper. We identify two such variables in Lanczo…
We study the zeroth law for Killing horizons in Lanczos-Lovelock gravity. We show that the surface gravity of a general Killing horizon in Lanczos-Lovelock gravity (except for general relativity) may not be constant even when the matter source satisfies dominant energy condition.
In the case of general relativity one can interpret the Noether charge in any bulk region as the heat content $TS$ of its boundary surface. Further, the time evolution of spacetime metric in Einstein's theory arises due to the difference $(N_{sur}-N_{bulk})$ of suitably defined surface and bulk degrees of freedom. We show that this thermodynamic interpretation generalizes in a natural fashion to all Lanczos-Lovelock models of gravity. The Noether charge, related to time evolution vector field, in a bulk region of space is equal to the heat content $TS$ of the boundary surface with the temperat…
The deep connection between gravitational dynamics and horizon thermodynamics leads to several intriguing features both in general relativity and in Lanczos-Lovelock theories of gravity. Recently in arXiv:1312.3253 several additional results strengthening the above connection have been established within the framework of general relativity. In this work we provide a generalization of the above setup to Lanczos-Lovelock gravity as well. To our expectation it turns out that most of the results obtained in the context of general relativity generalize to Lanczos-Lovelock gravity in a straightforwa…
We study quasi-stationary physical process for black holes within the context of Lanczos-Lovelock gravity. We show that the Wald entropy of stationary black holes in Lanczos-Lovelock gravity monotonically increases for quasi-stationary physical processes in which the horizon is perturbed by the accretion of positive energy matter and the black hole ultimately settles down to a stationary state. This result reinforces the physical interpretation of Wald entropy for Lanczos-Lovelock models and takes a step towards proving the analogue of the black hole area increase-theorem in a wider class of g…
We extend here the result of Bekenstein [1,2] proving the non-existence of minimally coupled scalar black hole hair in general relativity to the Lanczos-Lovelock gravity in arbitrary dimension with non-negative coupling constants. The only physical requirement on the multiplet of minimally coupled scalar fields is that it fulfills the weak energy condition. We also assume, similarly to Bekenstein, spherical symmetry and asymptotic flatness.
The Hamiltonian treatment for the collapse of thin shells for a family of Lanczos-Lovelock theories is studied. This formalism allows us to carry out a concise analysis of these theories. It is found that the black holes solution can be created by collapsing a thin shell. Naked singularities cannot be formed by this mechanism. Among the different Lanczos-Lovelock's theories, the Chern-Simons' theory corresponds to an exceptional case, because naked singularities can emerge from the collapse of a thin shell. This kind of theory does not possess a gravitational self-interaction analogous to the …
In this paper, we test the weak cosmic censorship conjecture (WCCC) in the nearly extremal static charged black holes of Lanczos-Lovelock-Maxwell gravity based on the new version of gedanken experiments proposed by Sorce and Wald. After introducing the null energy condition of the matter fields, we show that the (nearly) extremal black holes can be destroyed under the first-order approximation for the case with $S'(r_h)\leq 0$, where $S(r_h)$ is the entropy of the background black hole geometry in Lanczos-Lovelock gravity. It implies that the WCCC is violated in these situations. For the case …
A standard candidate for quasilocal energy in general relativity is the Brown-York energy, which is essentially a two dimensional surface integral of the extrinsic curvature on the two-boundary of a spacelike hypersurface referenced to flat spacetime. Several years back one of us had conjectured that the black hole horizon is defined by equipartition of gravitational and non-gravitational energy. By employing the above definition of quasilocal Brown-York energy, we have verified the equipartition conjecture for static charged and charged axi-symmetric blck holes in general relativity. We have …
We consider two specific approaches to evaluate the black hole entropy which are known to produce correct results in the case of Einstein's theory and generalize them to Lanczos-Lovelock models. In the first approach (which could be called extrinsic) we use a procedure motivated by earlier work by Pretorius, Vollick and Israel, and by Oppenheim, and evaluate the entropy of a configuration of densely packed gravitating shells on the verge of forming a black hole in Lanczos-Lovelock theories of gravity. We find that this matter entropy is not equal to (it is less than) Wald entropy, except in th…
Lanczos-Lovelock models of gravity represent a natural and elegant generalization of Einstein's theory of gravity to higher dimensions. They are characterized by the fact that the field equations only contain up to second derivatives of the metric even though the action functional can be a quadratic or higher degree polynomial in the curvature tensor. Because these models share several key properties of Einstein's theory they serve as a useful set of candidate models for testing the emergent paradigm for gravity. This review highlights several geometrical and thermodynamical aspects of Lanczos…
The Lanczos-Lovelock models of gravity constitute the most general theories of gravity in D dimensions which satisfy (a) the principle of of equivalence, (b) the principle of general co-variance, and (c) have field equations involving derivatives of the metric tensor only up to second order. The mth order Lanczos-Lovelock Lagrangian is a polynomial of degree m in the curvature tensor. The field equations resulting from it become trivial in the critical dimension $D = 2m$ and the action itself can be written as the integral of an exterior derivative of an expression involving the vierbeins, in …
The present work aims to explore the model given by Lanczos-Lovelock gravity theories indexed by a fixed integer to require a unique anti-de Sitter vacuum, dressed by a scalar field non-minimal coupling. For this model, we add a special matter source characterized by a non-linear Maxwell field coupling with a function depending on the scalar field. Computing its thermodynamics parameters by using the Euclidean action, we obtain interesting and non zero thermodynamical quantities, unlike its original version, allowing analyzing thermodynamical stability. Together with the above, we found that t…
We perform a space-time analysis of the D>4 quadratic curvature Lanczos-Lovelock (LL) model, exhibiting its dependence on intrinsic/extrinsic curvatures, lapse and shifts. As expected from general covariance, the field equations include D constraints, of zeroth and first time derivative order. In the "linearized" - here necessarily cubic - limit, we give an explicit formulation in terms of the usual ADM metric decomposition, incidentally showing that time derivatives act only on its transverse-traceless spatial components. Unsurprisingly, pure LL has no Hamiltonian formulation, nor are even it…
It is well known that, for a wide class of spacetimes with horizons, Einstein equations near the horizon can be written as a thermodynamic identity. It is also known that the Einstein tensor acquires a highly symmetric form near static, as well as stationary, horizons. We show that, for generic static spacetimes, this highly symmetric form of the Einstein tensor leads quite naturally and generically to the interpretation of the near-horizon field equations as a thermodynamic identity. We further extend this result to generic static spacetimes in Lanczos-Lovelock gravity, and show that the near…
We study the membrane paradigm for horizons in Lanczos-Lovelock models of gravity in arbitrary D dimensions and find compact expressions for the pressure p and viscosity coefficients ηand ζof the membrane fluid. We show that the membrane pressure is intimately connected with the Noether charge entropy S_Wald of the horizon when we consider a specific m-th order Lanczos-Lovelock model, through the relation pA/T=(D-2m)/(D-2)S_Wald, where T is the temperature and A is the area of the horizon. Similarly, the viscosity coefficients are expressible in terms of entropy and quasi-local energy associat…
There has recently been an increasing interest in regularizations of Lovelock-Lanczos gravity (LLG) in four dimensions, in which dimensional poles and possibly counter-terms are introduced to compensate the vanishing of the Lovelock field equations in critical and lower dimensions. In this paper, we review and extend some of these results. We first find a class of LLG theories whose perturbative expansion around a given (A)dS vacuum can be regularized up to arbitrary order, the simplest one being close to Lovelock gravities with a unique vacuum. If well-defined, these models might be interpret…
Ghost-free bimetric theories describe nonlinear interactions of massive and massless spin-2 fields and, hence, provide a natural framework for investigating the phenomenon of partial masslessness for massive spin-2 fields at the nonlinear level. In this paper we analyze the spectrum of the ghost-free bimetric theory in arbitrary dimensions. Using a recently proposed construction, we identify the candidate nonlinear partially massless (PM) theories. It is shown that, in a 2-derivative setup, nonlinear PM theories can exist only in 3 and 4 dimensions. But on adding Lanczos-Lovelock terms to the …
We obtain the conserved Abbott-Deser-Tekin (ADT)-{\it like} current for the Lanczos-Lovelock gravity for a diffeomorphism vector, which defines the horizon of a spacetime and, importantly, is not necessarily a Killing vector. As the original ADT current is defined only for the presence of a background Killing vector, one cannot use it extensively for the thermodynamic description of the wide classes of non-Killing horizons which appear in gravity. On the other hand, this general approach can be utilized for those horizons. Here, the conserved current can be written as the derivative of the two…
Spacetimes with horizons show a resemblance to thermodynamic systems and one can associate the notions of temperature and entropy with them. In the case of Einstein-Hilbert gravity, it is possible to interpret Einstein's equations as the thermodynamic identity TdS = dE + PdV for a spherically symmetric spacetime and thus provide a thermodynamic route to understand the dynamics of gravity. We study this approach further and show that the field equations for Lanczos-Lovelock action in a spherically symmetric spacetime can also be expressed as TdS = dE + PdV with S and E being given by expression…
A four-dimensional regularization of Lovelock-Lanczos gravity up to an arbitrary curvature order is considered. We show that Lovelock-Lanczos terms can provide a non-trivial contribution to the Einstein field equations in four dimensions, for spherically symmetric and Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker spacetimes, as well as at first order in perturbation theory around (anti) de Sitter vacua. We will discuss the cosmological and black hole solutions arising from these theories, focusing on the presence of attractors and their stability. Although curvature singularities persist for any finite …
We develop a covariant scheme to describe the dynamics of small perturbations on Lovelock type extended objects propagating in a flat Minkowski spacetime. The higher-dimensional analogue of the Jacobi equation in this theory becomes a wave type equation for a scalar field $Φ$. Whithin this framework, we analyse the stability of membranes with a de Sitter geometry where we find that the Jacobi equation specializes to a Klein-Gordon (KG) equation for $Φ$ possessing a tachyonic mass. This shows that, to some extent, these type of extended objects share the symmetries of the Dirac-Nambu-Goto (DNG)…
Lanczos-Lovelock theories of gravity, in its first order version, are studied on asymptotically locally anti de Sitter spaces. It is shown that thermodynamics satisfies the standard behavior and an expression for entropy is found for this formalism. Finally a short analysis of the algebra of conserved charges is displayed.
We construct a two-dimensional action that is an extension of spherically symmetric Einstein-Lanczos-Lovelock gravity. The action contains arbitrary functions of the areal radius and the norm squared of its gradient, but the field equations are second order and obey Birkhoff's theorem. In complete analogy with spherically symmetric Einstein-Lanczos-Lovelock gravity, the field equations admit the generalized Misner-Sharp mass as the first integral that determines the form of the vacuum solution. The arbitrary functions in the action allow for vacuum solutions that describe a larger class of int…
In the Riemann geometry, the metric's equation of motion for an arbitrary Lagrangian is succinctly expressed in term of the first variation of the action with respect to the Riemann tensor if the Riemann tensor were independent of the metric. Let this variation be called the E-tensor. Noting that the E-tensor and equations of the motion for a general Lovelock gravity have the same differential degree, we define generalized Lovelock gravity as polynomial scalar densities constructed out from the Riemann tensor and its arbitrary covariant derivatives such that they lead to the same differential …
A new tensor $D$ is introduced which is constructed from the Lanczos potential and is of the same form as that of the Weyl tensor $C$ expressed in terms of the Lanczos potential except that covariant differentiation is replaced by transvection with a vector $v$. The new tensor has associated invariants $C\cdot D$ and $D^2$, the first of these can be interpreted as a Chern-Simons term for Weyl $C^2$ gravity. Both invariants allow various tensors to be constructed and some of the properties of these are investigated by using exact examples.
Starting from the SO(2,2n) Chern-Simons form in (2n+1) dimensions we calculate the variation of conserved quantities in Lovelock gravity and Lovelock-Maxwell gravity through the covariant formalism developed in gr-qc/0305047. Despite the technical complexity of the Lovelock Lagrangian we obtain a remarkably simple expression for the variation of the charges ensuing from the diffeomorphism covariance of the theory. The viability of the result is tested in specific applications and the formal expression for the entropy of Lovelock black holes is recovered.
As in the case of Lanczos-Lovelock gravity, the main advantage of F(T) gravity is said to be that it leads to second order field equations, while F(R) gravity theory leads to fourth order equations. We show that it is rather a disadvantage, since it leads to the unresolved issue of `Branched Hamiltonian'. The problem is bypassed in F(R,T) gravity theory.
We study thermodynamics of black hole solutions in Lanczos-Lovelock AdS gravity in d+1 dimensions coupled to nonlinear electrodynamics and a Stueckelberg scalar field. This class of theories is used in the context of gauge/gravity duality to describe a high-temperature superconductor in d dimensions. Larger number of coupling constants in the gravitational side is necessary to widen a domain of validity of physical quantities in a dual QFT. We regularize the gravitational action and find the finite conserved quantities for a planar black hole with scalar hair. Then we derive the quantum statis…
We demonstrate how, for an arbitrary number of dimensions, the Galileon actions and their covariant generalizations can be obtained through a standard Kaluza-Klein compactification of higher-dimensional Lovelock gravity. In this setup, the dilaton takes on the role of the Galileon. In addition, such compactifications uncover other more general Galilean actions, producing purely second-order equations in the weak-field limit, now both for the Galileon and the metric perturbations.
In Einstein's gravity, the entropy of horizons is proportional to their area. Several arguments given in the literature suggest that, in this context, both area and entropy should be quantized with an equally spaced spectrum for large quantum numbers. But in more general theories (like, for e.g, in the black hole solutions of Gauss-Bonnet or Lanczos-Lovelock gravity) the horizon entropy is \emph{not} proportional to area and the question arises as to which of the two (if at all) will have this property. We give a general argument that in all Lanczos-Lovelock theories of gravity, it is the \emp…
A Palatini-type action for Einstein and Gauss-Bonnet gravity with non-trivial torsion is proposed. Three-form flux is incorporated via a deformation of the Riemann tensor, and consistency of the Palatini variational principle requires the flux to be covariantly constant and to satisfy a Jacobi identity. Studying gravity actions of third order in the curvature leads to a conjecture about general Palatini-Lovelock-Cartan gravity. We point out potential relations to string-theoretic Bianchi identities and, using the Schouten-Nijenhuis bracket, derive a set of Bianchi identities for the non-geomet…
We derive conserved charges as quasi-local Hamiltonians by covariant phase space methods for a class of geometric Lagrangians that can be written in terms of the spin connection, the vielbein and possibly other tensorial form fields, allowing also for non-zero torsion. We then re-calculate certain known results and derive some new ones in three to six dimensions hopefully enlightening certain aspects of all of them. The quasi-local energy is defined in terms of the metric and not its first derivatives, requiring `regularization' for convergence in most cases. Counter-terms consistent with Diri…
In this paper, using the combined Lorentz-diffeomorphism symmetry, we find a general formula for quasi-local conserved charge of the covariant gravity theories in first order formalism of gravity. We simplify the general formula for Lovelock theory of gravity. Afterwards, we apply the obtained formula on BHT gravity to obtain energy and angular momentum of the rotating OTT black hole solution in the context of this theory.
We extend Padmanabhan's entropy functional formalism to show that, in addition to the Gauss-Bonnet or the entire series of Lanczos-Lovelock Lagrangians already obtained, more general higher-order corrections to General Relativity, i.e., the so-called modified gravity theories, also emerge naturally from this formalism. This extension shows that the formalism constitutes a valuable tool to investigate, at each order in the curvature, the possible structure the higher-order modified gravity theories might have. As an application, the extended formalism is used to evaluate the horizon entropy in …
The zeroth law of black hole mechanics is an assertion of constancy of the surface gravity on a stationary Killing horizon. The Hawking temperature of the black hole horizon is proportional to the surface gravity. Therefore, the constancy of the surface gravity is reminiscent of the zeroth law of ordinary thermodynamics. In this work, we provide a proof of the zeroth law in Lanczos-Lovelock theories of gravity, where the Einstein Hilbert action is supplemented by higher curvature terms.
Thermodynamics plays an important role in gravitational theories. It is a principle independent of the gravitational dynamics, and there is still no rigorous proof to show that it is consistent with the dynamical principle. We consider a self-gravitating perfect fluid system in a general diffeomorphism-covariant purely gravitational theory. Based on the Noether charge method proposed by Iyer and Wald, considering static off/on-shell variational configurations which satisfy the gravitational constraint equation, we rigorously prove that the extrema of the total entropy of perfect fluid inside a…
Einstein-Hilbert action and its natural generalizations to higher dimensions (like the Lanczos-Lovelock action) have certain peculiar features. All of them can be separated into a bulk and a surface term, with a specific ("holographic") relationship between the two, so that either term can be used to extract information about the other. Further, the surface term leads to entropy of the horizons on-shell. It has been argued in the past that these features are impossible to understand in the conventional approach but find a natural explanation if we consider gravity as an emergent phenomenon. We…
We outline how the Wald entropy formula naturally arises in loop quantum gravity based on recently introduced dimension-independent connection variables. The key observation is that in a loop quantization of a generalized gravity theory, the analog of the area operator turns out to measure, morally speaking, the Wald entropy rather than the area. We discuss the explicit example of (higher-dimensional) Lanczos-Lovelock gravity and comment on recent work on finding the correct numerical prefactor of the entropy by comparing it to a semiclassical effective action.
The null surfaces of a spacetime act as one-way membranes and can block information for a corresponding family of observers (time-like curves). Since lack of information can be related to entropy, this suggests the possibility of assigning an entropy to the null surfaces of a spacetime. We motivate and introduce such an entropy functional for any vector field in terms of a fourth-rank divergence free tensor P_{ab}^{cd} with the symmetries of the curvature tensor. Extremising this entropy for all the null surfaces then leads to equations for the background metric of the spacetime. When P_{ab}^{…
We present a family of extensions of spherically symmetric Einstein-Lanczos-Lovelock gravity. The field equations are second order and obey a generalized Birkhoff's theorem. The Hamiltonian constraint can be written in terms of a generalized Misner-Sharp mass function that determines the form of the vacuum solution. The action can be designed to yield interesting non-singular black-hole spacetimes as the unique vacuum solutions, including the Hayward black hole as well as a completely new one. The new theories therefore provide a consistent starting point for studying the formation and evapora…
We consider massless higher-order gravities in general $D=d+1$ dimensions, which are Einstein gravity extended with higher-order curvature invariants in such a way that the linearized spectrum around the AdS vacua involves only the massless graviton. We derive the covariant holographic two-point functions and find that they have a universal structure. In particular, the theory-dependent overall coefficient factor $\mathcal{C}_T$ can be universally expressed by $(d-1) \mathcal{C}_T=\ell (\partial a/\partial\ell)$, where $a$ is the holographic $a$-charge and $\ell$ is the AdS radius. We verify t…
The $(2k)$-th Gauss-Bonnet curvature is a generalization to higher dimensions of the $(2k)$-dimensional Gauss-Bonnet integrand, it coincides with the usual scalar curvature for $k=1$. The Gauss-Bonnet curvatures are used in theoretical physics to describe gravity in higher dimensional space times where they are known as the Lagrangian of Lovelock gravity, Gauss-Bonnet Gravity and Lanczos gravity. In this paper we present various aspects of these curvature invariants and review their variational properties. In particular, we discuss natural generalizations of the Yamabe problem, Einstein metric…
We attempt to generalize the familiar covariantly conserved Bel-Robinson tensor B_{mnab} ~ R R of GR and its recent topologically massive third derivative order counterpart B ~ RDR, to quadratic curvature actions. Two very different models of current interest are examined: fourth order D=3 "new massive", and second order D>4 Lanczos-Lovelock, gravity. On dimensional grounds, the candidates here become B ~ DRDR+RRR. For the D=3 model, there indeed exist conserved B ~ dRdR in the linearized limit. However, despite a plethora of available cubic terms, B cannot be extended to the full theory. The …
Affine gravity and the Palatini formalism contribute both to produce a simple and unique formula for calculating charges at spatial and null infinity for Lovelock type Lagrangians whose variational derivatives do not depend on second-order derivatives of the field components. The method is based on the covariant generalization due to Julia and Silva of the Regge-Teitelboim procedure that was used to define properly the mass in the classical formulation of Einstein's theory of gravity. Numerous applications reproduce standard results obtained by other secure but mostly specialized methods. As a…
We consider the sum of the Einstein-Hilbert action and a Pontryagin density (PD) in arbitrary even dimension $D$. All curvatures are functions of independent affine (torsionless) connections only. In arbitrary dimension, not only in $D=4n$, these first order PD terms are shown to be covariant divergences of "Chern-Simons" currents. The field equation for the connection leads to it being Levi-Civita, and to the metric and affine field equations being equivalent to the second order metric theory. This result is a counterexample to the theorem stating that purely metric and metric-affine models c…
We present a simple way of constructing conformal couplings of a scalar field to higher order Euler densities. This is done by constructing a four-rank tensor involving the curvature and derivatives of the field, which transforms covariantly under local Weyl rescalings. The equation of motion for the field, as well as its energy momentum tensor are shown to be of second order. The field equations for the spherically symmetric ansatz are integrated, and for generic non-homogeneous couplings, the solution is given in terms of a polynomial equation, in close analogy with Lovelock theories.
The recently proposed restricted phase space thermodynamics is shown to be applicable to a large class of higher dimensional higher curvature gravity models coupled to Maxwell field, which are known as black hole scan models and are labeled by the spacetime dimension $d$ and the highest order $k$ of the Lanczos-Lovelock densities appearing in the action. Three typical example cases with $(d,k)=(5,1), (5,2)$ and $(6,2)$ are chosen as example cases and studied in some detail. These cases are representatives of Einstein-Hilbert, Chern-Simons and Born-Infield like gravity models. Our study indicat…
A new derivation of surface charges for 3+1 gravity coupled to Electromagnetism is obtained. Gravity theory is written in the tetrad-connection variables. The general derivation starts from the Lagrangian and uses the covariant symplectic formalism in the language of forms. For gauge theories surface charges disentangle physical from gauge symmetries through the use of Noether identities and the exactness symmetry condition. The surface charges are quasilocal, explicitly coordinate independent, gauge invariant, and background independent. For a black hole family solution the surface charge con…
The fact that one can associate thermodynamic properties with horizons brings together principles of quantum theory, gravitation and thermodynamics and possibly offers a window to the nature of quantum geometry. This review discusses certain aspects of this topic concentrating on new insights gained from some recent work. After a brief introduction of the overall perspective, Sections 2 and 3 provide the pedagogical background on the geometrical features of bifurcation horizons, path integral derivation of horizon temperature, black hole evaporation, structure of Lanczos-Lovelock models, the c…
The problem of black hole production in transplanckian particle collisions is revisited, in the context of large extra dimensions scenarios of TeV-scale gravity. The validity of the standard description of this process (two colliding Aichelburg-Sexl shock waves in classical Einstein gravity) is questioned. It is observed that the classical spacetime has large curvature along the transverse collision plane, as signaled by the curvature invariant (R_ijkl)^2. Thus quantum gravity effects, and in particular higher curvature corrections to the Einstein gravity, cannot be ignored. To give a specific…
In this Letter we present a general covariant modified theory of gravity in $D\!=\!4$ space-time dimensions which propagates only the massless graviton and bypasses the Lovelock's theorem. The theory we present is formulated in $D\!>\!4$ dimensions and its action consists of the Einstein-Hilbert term with a cosmological constant, and the Gauss-Bonnet term multiplied by a factor $1/(D\!-\!4)$. The four-dimensional theory is defined as the limit $D\!\to\!4$. In this singular limit the Gauss-Bonnet invariant gives rise to non-trivial contributions to gravitational dynamics, while preserving the n…
