Search results for "General Relativity"
showing 10 items of 1057 documents
Planck-scale physics: facts and beliefs
2006
The relevance of the Planck scale to a theory of quantum gravity has become a worryingly little examined assumption that goes unchallenged in the majority of research in this area. However, in all scientific honesty, the significance of Planck's natural units in a future physical theory of spacetime is only a plausible, yet by no means certain, assumption. The purpose of this article is to clearly separate fact from belief in this connection.
Gravitational waves in dynamical spacetimes with matter content in the fully constrained formulation
2012
The Fully Constrained Formulation (FCF) of General Relativity is a novel framework introduced as an alternative to the hyperbolic formulations traditionally used in numerical relativity. The FCF equations form a hybrid elliptic-hyperbolic system of equations including explicitly the constraints. We present an implicit-explicit numerical algorithm to solve the hyperbolic part, whereas the elliptic sector shares the form and properties with the well known Conformally Flat Condition (CFC) approximation. We show the stability andconvergence properties of the numerical scheme with numerical simulations of vacuum solutions. We have performed the first numerical evolutions of the coupled system of…
Fully relativistic non-linear cosmological evolution in spherical symmetry using the BSSN formalism
2014
We present a fully relativistic numerical method for the study of cosmological problems using the Baumgarte-Shapiro-Shibata-Nakamura formalism on a dynamical Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker background. This has many potential applications including the study of the growth of structures beyond the linear regime. We present one such application by reproducing the Lema\^itre-Tolman-Bondi solution for the collapse of pressureless matter with arbitrary lapse function. The regular and smooth numerical solution at the center of coordinates proceeds in a natural way by relying on the Partially Implicit Runge-Kutta algorithm described in Montero and Cordero-Carri\'on [arXiv:1211.5930]. We gene…
A Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi cosmological wormhole
2010
We present a new analytical solution of the Einstein field equations describing a wormhole shell of zero thickness joining two Lema{\i}tre-Tolman-Bondi universes, with no radial accretion. The material on the shell satisfies the energy conditions and, at late times, the shell becomes comoving with the dust-dominated cosmic substratum.
Gravitational waves from oscillating accretion tori: Comparison between different approaches
2005
Quasi-periodic oscillations of high density thick accretion disks orbiting a Schwarzschild black hole have been recently addressed as interesting sources of gravitational waves. The aim of this paper is to compare the gravitational waveforms emitted from these sources when computed using (variations of) the standard quadrupole formula and gauge-invariant metric perturbation theory. To this goal we evolve representative disk models using an existing general relativistic hydrodynamics code which has been previously employed in investigations of such astrophysical systems. Two are the main results of this work: First, for stable and marginally stable disks, no excitation of the black hole quas…
On the black hole from merging binary neutron stars: how fast can it spin?
2013
The merger of two neutron stars will in general lead to the formation of a torus surrounding a black hole whose rotational energy can be tapped to potentially power a short gamma-ray burst. We have studied the merger of equal-mass binaries with spins aligned with the orbital angular momentum to determine the maximum spin the black hole can reach. Our initial data consists of irrotational binaries to which we add various amounts of rotation to increase the total angular momentum. Although the initial data violates the constraint equations, the use of the constraint-damping CCZ4 formulation yields evolutions with violations smaller than those with irrotational initial data and standard formul…
Creatable universes
2007
We consider the question of properly defining energy and momenta for non asymptotic Minkowskian spaces in general relativity. Only spaces of this type, whose energy, linear 3-momentum, and intrinsic angular momentum vanish, would be candidates for creatable universes, that is, for universes which could have arisen from a vacuum quantum fluctuation. Given a universe, we completely characterize the family of coordinate systems for which one could sensibly say that this universe is a creatable universe.
Measuring the black hole spin direction in 3D Cartesian numerical relativity simulations
2015
We show that the so-called flat-space rotational Killing vector method for measuring the Cartesian components of a black hole spin can be derived from the surface integral of Weinberg's pseudotensor over the apparent horizon surface when using Gaussian normal coordinates in the integration. Moreover, the integration of the pseudotensor in this gauge yields the Komar angular momentum integral in a foliation adapted to the axisymmetry of the spacetime. As a result, the method does not explicitly depend on the evolved lapse $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ and shift ${\ensuremath{\beta}}^{i}$ on the respective time slice, as they are fixed to Gaussian normal coordinates while leaving the coordinate label…
Implications of nonsymmetric metric theories for particle physics. New interpretation of the Pauli coupling
2014
In this work, we provide a possible geometrical interpretation of the spin of elementary particles. In particular, it is investigated how the wave equations of matter are altered by the addition of an antisymmetric contribution to the metric tensor. In this scenario, the explicit form of the matter wave equations is investigated in a general curved spacetime, and then the equations are particularized to the flat case. Unlike traditional approaches of Nonsymmetric Gravitational Theories (NGT), in which the gravitational field is responsible for breaking the symmetry of the flat Minkowski metric, we find more natural to consider that, in general, the metric of the spacetime could be nonsymme…
Black hole state degeneracy in Loop Quantum Gravity
2008
The combinatorial problem of counting the black hole quantum states within the Isolated Horizon framework in Loop Quantum Gravity is analyzed. A qualitative understanding of the origin of the band structure shown by the degeneracy spectrum, which is responsible for the black hole entropy quantization, is reached. Even when motivated by simple considerations, this picture allows to obtain analytical expressions for the most relevant quantities associated to this effect.