Search results for "Gravitation"
showing 10 items of 743 documents
Great Impostors: Extremely Compact, Merging Binary Neutron Stars in the Mass Gap Posing as Binary Black Holes
2019
Can one distinguish a binary black hole undergoing a merger from a binary neutron star if the individual compact companions have masses that fall inside the so-called mass gap of $3-5\ M_\odot$? For neutron stars, achieving such masses typically requires extreme compactness and in this work we present initial data and evolutions of binary neutron stars initially in quasiequilibrium circular orbits having a compactness $C=0.336$. These are the most compact, nonvacuum, quasiequilibrium binary objects that have been constructed and evolved to date, including boson stars. The compactness achieved is only slightly smaller than the maximum possible imposed by causality, $C_{\rm max}=0.355$, which…
Universal Relations for Gravitational-Wave Asteroseismology of Protoneutron Stars
2019
State-of-the-art numerical simulations of core-collapse supernovae reveal that the main source of gravitational waves is the excitation of proto-neutron star modes during post-bounce evolution. In this work we derive universal relations that relate the frequencies of the most common oscillation modes observed, i.e. g-modes, p-modes and the f-mode, with fundamental properties of the system, such as the surface gravity of the proto-neutron star or the mean density in the region enclosed by the shock. These relations are independent of the equation of state, the neutrino treatment, and the progenitor mass and hence can be used to build methods to infer proto-neutron star properties from gravit…
Synchronised gravitational atoms from mergers of bosonic stars
2020
If ultralight bosonic fields exist in Nature as dark matter, superradiance spins down rotating black holes (BHs), dynamically endowing them with equilibrium bosonic clouds, here dubbed synchronised gravitational atoms (SGAs). The self-gravity of these same fields, on the other hand, can lump them into (scalar or vector) horizonless solitons known as bosonic stars (BSs). We show that the dynamics of BSs yields a new channel forming SGAs. We study BS binaries that merge to form spinning BHs. After horizon formation, the BH spins up by accreting the bosonic field, but a remnant lingers around the horizon. If just enough angular momentum is present, the BH spin up stalls precisely as the remnan…
Wormholes supported by hybrid metric-Palatini gravity
2012
Recently, a modified theory of gravity was presented, which consists of the superposition of the metric Einstein-Hilbert Lagrangian with an $f(\cal R)$ term constructed \`{a} la Palatini. The theory possesses extremely interesting features such as predicting the existence of a long-range scalar field, that explains the late-time cosmic acceleration and passes the local tests, even in the presence of a light scalar field. In this brief report, we consider the possibility that wormholes are supported by this hybrid metric-Palatini gravitational theory. We present here the general conditions for wormhole solutions according to the null energy conditions at the throat and find specific examples…
Gravity-mediated Scalar Dark Matter in Warped Extra-Dimensions
2020
We revisit the case of scalar dark matter interacting just gravitationally with the Standard Model (SM) particles in an extra-dimensional Randall-Sundrum scenario. We assume that both, the dark matter and the Standard Model, are localized in the TeV brane and only interact via gravitational mediators, namely the graviton Kaluza-Klein modes and the radion. We analyze in detail the dark matter annihilation channel into two on-shell KK-gravitons, and contrary to previous studies which overlooked this process, we find that it is possible to obtain the correct relic abundance for dark matter masses in the range [1, 10] TeV even after taking into account the strong bounds from LHC Run II. We also…
High-Order Fully General-Relativistic Hydrodynamics: new Approaches and Tests
2014
We present a new approach for achieving high-order convergence in fully general-relativistic hydrodynamic simulations. The approach is implemented in WhiskyTHC, a new code that makes use of state-of-the-art numerical schemes and was key in achieving, for the first time, higher than second-order convergence in the calculation of the gravitational radiation from inspiraling binary neutron stars Radice et al. (2013). Here, we give a detailed description of the algorithms employed and present results obtained for a series of classical tests involving isolated neutron stars. In addition, using the gravitational-wave emission from the late inspiral and merger of binary neutron stars, we make a de…
Accurate evolutions of unequal-mass neutron-star binaries: properties of the torus and short GRB engines
2010
We present new results from accurate and fully general-relativistic simulations of the coalescence of unmagnetized binary neutron stars with various mass ratios. The evolution of the stars is followed through the inspiral phase, the merger and prompt collapse to a black hole, up until the appearance of a thick accretion disk, which is studied as it enters and remains in a regime of quasi-steady accretion. Although a simple ideal-fluid equation of state with \Gamma=2 is used, this work presents a systematic study within a fully general relativistic framework of the properties of the resulting black-hole--torus system produced by the merger of unequal-mass binaries. More specifically, we show…
Neutrino tomography of the Earth
2018
Cosmic-ray interactions with the nuclei of the Earth's atmosphere produce a flux of neutrinos in all directions with energies extending above the TeV scale. However, the Earth is not a fully transparent medium for neutrinos with energies above a few TeV. At these energies, the charged-current neutrino-nucleon cross section is large enough so that the neutrino mean-free path in a medium with the Earth's density is comparable to the Earth's diameter. Therefore, when neutrinos of these energies cross the Earth, there is a non-negligible probability for them to be absorbed. Since this effect depends on the distance traveled by neutrinos and on their energy, studying the zenith and energy distri…
General relativistic neutrino transport using spectral methods
2014
We present a new code, Lorene's Ghost (for Lorene's gravitational handling of spectral transport) developed to treat the problem of neutrino transport in supernovae with the use of spectral methods. First, we derive the expression for the nonrelativistic Liouville operator in doubly spherical coordinates (r, theta, phi, epsilon, Theta, Phi)$, and further its general relativistic counterpart. We use the 3 + 1 formalism with the conformally flat approximation for the spatial metric, to express the Liouville operator in the Eulerian frame. Our formulation does not use any approximations when dealing with the angular arguments (theta, phi, Theta, Phi), and is fully energy-dependent. This approa…
IceCube-Gen2: The Window to the Extreme Universe
2020
The observation of electromagnetic radiation from radio to $\gamma$-ray wavelengths has provided a wealth of information about the universe. However, at PeV (10$^{15}$ eV) energies and above, most of the universe is impenetrable to photons. New messengers, namely cosmic neutrinos, are needed to explore the most extreme environments of the universe where black holes, neutron stars, and stellar explosions transform gravitational energy into non-thermal cosmic rays. The discovery of cosmic neutrinos with IceCube has opened this new window on the universe. In this white paper, we present an overview of a next-generation instrument, IceCube-Gen2, which will sharpen our understanding of the proce…