Search results for "General Relativity"
showing 10 items of 1057 documents
Confusing Head-On Collisions with Precessing Intermediate-Mass Binary Black Hole Mergers
2021
We report a degeneracy between the gravitational-wave signals from quasi-circular precessing black-hole mergers and those from extremely eccentric mergers, namely head-on collisions. Performing model selection on numerically simulated signals of head-on collisions using models for quasi-circular binaries we find that, for signal-to-noise ratios of 15 and 25, typical of Advanced LIGO observations, head-on mergers with respective total masses of $M\in (125,300)M_\odot$ and $M\in (200,440)M_\odot$ would be identified as precessing quasi-circular intermediate-mass black hole binaries, located at a much larger distance. Ruling out the head-on scenario would require to perform model selection usi…
Background independent quantum field theory and gravitating vacuum fluctuations
2019
The scale dependent effective average action for quantum gravity complies with the fundamental principle of Background Independence. Ultimately the background metric it formally depends on is selected self-consistently by means of a suitable generalization of Einstein's equation. Self-consistent backround spacetimes are scale dependent, and therefore "going on-shell" at the points along a given renormalization group (RG) trajectory requires understanding two types of scale dependencies: the (familiar) direct one carried by the off-shell action functional, and an indirect one related to the self-consistent background geometry. This paper is devoted to a careful delineation and analysis of ce…
Radial conformal motions in Minkowski space–time
1999
A study of radial conformal Killing fields (RCKF) in Minkowski space-time is carried out, which leads to their classification into three disjointed classes. Their integral curves are straight or hyperbolic lines admitting orthogonal surfaces of constant curvature, whose sign is related to the causal character of the field. Otherwise, the kinematic properties of the timelike RCKF are given and their applications in kinematic cosmology is discussed.
Numerical Hydrodynamics and Magnetohydrodynamics in General Relativity.
2008
This article presents a comprehensive overview of numerical hydrodynamics and magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD) in general relativity. Some significant additions have been incorporated with respect to the previous two versions of this review (2000, 2003), most notably the coverage of general-relativistic MHD, a field in which remarkable activity and progress has occurred in the last few years. Correspondingly, the discussion of astrophysical simulations in general-relativistic hydrodynamics is enlarged to account for recent relevant advances, while those dealing with general-relativistic MHD are amply covered in this review for the first time. The basic outline of this article is nevertheless sim…
Energy-level shifts of a uniformly accelerated atom between two reflecting plates
2011
We discuss the radiative level shifts of a uniformly accelerated atom moving between two infinite reflecting plates and interacting with a massless scalar field in the vacuum state. The atom, supposed to be a two-level system, accelerates in a direction parallel to the conducting plates. We evaluate separately the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction field to the energy shift of the atomic levels, and discuss their dependence on acceleration, atomic position and cavity length.
Presymplectic manifolds and conservation laws
2008
In this paper we make use of a new structure called seeded fibre bundle. This allows us to combine the symplectic formalism and general relativity. A theorem of existence is obtained and some examples and properties are studied.
Parameterized nonrelativistic limit of stellar structure equations in Ricci-based gravity theories
2021
We present the non-relativistic limit of the stellar structure equations of Ricci-based gravities, a family of metric-affine theories whose Lagrangian is built via contractions of the metric with the Ricci tensor of an a priori independent connection. We find that this limit is characterized by four parameters that arise in the expansion of several geometric quantities in powers of the stress-energy tensor of the matter fields. We discuss the relevance of this result for the phenomenology of non-relativistic stars, such as main-sequence stars as well as several substellar objects.
Junction conditions in Palatinif(R) gravity
2020
We work out the junction conditions for $f(R)$ gravity formulated in metric-affine (Palatini) spaces using a tensor distributional approach. These conditions are needed for building consistent models of gravitating bodies with an interior and exterior regions matched at some hypersurface. Some of these conditions depart from the standard Darmois-Israel ones of General Relativity and from their metric $f(R)$ counterparts. In particular, we find that the trace of the stress-energy momentum tensor in the bulk must be continuous across the matching hypersurface, though its normal derivative need not to. We illustrate the relevance of these conditions by considering the properties of stellar sur…
Birkhoff's theorem and perturbations in $f(R)$ theories
2012
Invited contribution to Annalen der Physik (Expert Opinion).
THREE-DIMENSIONAL RELATIVISTIC SIMULATIONS OF ROTATING NEUTRON-STAR COLLAPSE TO A KERR BLACK HOLE
2006
We present a new three-dimensional fully general-relativistic hydrodynamics code using high-resolution shock-capturing techniques and a conformal traceless formulation of the Einstein equations. Besides presenting a thorough set of tests which the code passes with very high accuracy, we discuss its application to the study of the gravitational collapse of uniformly rotating neutron stars to Kerr black holes. The initial stellar models are modeled as relativistic polytropes which are either secularly or dynamically unstable and with angular velocities which range from slow rotation to the mass-shedding limit. We investigate the gravitational collapse by carefully studying not only the dynami…