General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)

Abstract: The coordinate freedom of General Relativity makes it challenging to find mathematically rigorous and physically sound definitions for physical quantities such as the center of mass of an isolated gravitating system. We will argue that a similar phenomenon occurs in Newtonian Gravity once one ahistorically drops the restriction that one should only work in Cartesian coordinates when studying Newtonian Gravity. This will also shed light on the nature of the challenge of defining the center of mass in General Relativity. Relatedly, we will give explicit examples of asymptotically Euclidean relativistic initial data sets which do not satisfy the Regge--Teitelboim parity conditions often used to achieve a satisfactory definition of center of mass. These originate in our joint work with Jan Metzger. This will require appealing to Bartnik's asymptotic harmonic coordinates.

Abstract: Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals (EMRIs) are one of the key sources for future space-based gravitational wave interferometers. Measurements of EMRI gravitational waves are expected to determine the characteristics of their sources with sub-percent precision. However, their waveform generation is challenging due to the long duration of the signal and the high harmonic content. Here, we present the first ready-to-use Schwarzschild eccentric EMRI waveform implementation in the frequency domain for use with either graphics processing units (GPUs) or central processing units (CPUs). We present the overall waveform implementation and test the accuracy and performance of the frequency domain waveforms against the time domain implementation. On GPUs, the frequency domain waveform takes in median $0.044$ seconds to generate and is twice as fast to compute as its time domain counterpart when considering massive black hole masses $\geq 2 \times 10^6 \,{\rm M_\odot}$ and initial eccentricities $e_0 > 0.2$. On CPUs, the median waveform evaluation time is $5$ seconds, and it is five times faster in the frequency domain than in the time domain. Using a sparser frequency array can further speed up the waveform generation, reaching up to $ 0.3$ seconds. This enables us to perform, for the first time, EMRI parameter inference with fully relativistic waveforms on CPUs. Future EMRI models which encompass wider source characteristics (particularly black hole spin and generic orbit geometries) will require significantly more harmonics. Frequency-domain models will be essential analysis tools for these astrophysically realistic and important signals.

Abstract: We compute the leading order contribution to radiative losses in the case of spinning binaries with aligned spins due to their spin-orbit interaction. The orbital average along hyperboliclike orbits is taken through an appropriate spin-orbit modification to the quasi-Keplerian parametrization for nonspinning bodies, which maintains the same functional form, but with spin-dependent orbital elements. We perform consistency checks with existing PN-based and PM-based results. In the former case, we compare our expressions for both radiated energy and angular momentum with those obtained in [JHEP \textbf{04}, 154 (2022)] by applying the boundary-to-bound correspondence to known results for ellipticlike orbits, finding agreement. The linear momentum loss is instead newly computed here. In the latter case, we also find agreement with the low-velocity limit of recent calculations of the total radiated energy, angular momentum and linear momentum in the framework of an extension of the worldline quantum field theory approach to the classical scattering of spinning bodies at the leading post-Minkowskian order [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{128}, no.1, 011101 (2022), Phys. Rev. D \textbf{106}, no.4, 044013 (2022)]. We get exact expressions of the radiative losses in terms of the orbital elements, even if they are at the leading post-Newtonian order, so that their expansion for large values of the eccentricity parameter (or equivalently of the impact parameter) provides higher-order terms in the corresponding post-Minkowskian expansion, which can be useful for future crosschecks of other approaches.

Abstract: I describe parts of my joint work with S. Deser [March 19, 1931 - April 21, 2023] which started when I was working as a post-doc at Brandeis University in 2001. Our work was mostly, but not exclusively, on conserved charges of higher curvature theories of gravity. I also describe some recent developments, such as expressing the conserved charges in terms of the Riemann tensor, but do not add any novel material which has not been published before, however, I expound upon the computations. I also reminisce about our interaction for over two decades that went beyond our scientific collaboration. The physics part of this review is intended for graduate students and researchers interested in extended theories of gravity, especially about the conserved quantities and perturbative techniques in these theories.

Abstract: We investigate the scattering of a massless scalar field by a charged non-rotating black hole in the presence of gravity's rainbow. Using the connection coefficients of the confluent Heun equation expressed in terms of the semi-classical confluent conformal blocks and the instanton part of the Nekrasov-Shatashvili (NS) free energy, we obtain an asymptotic expansion for the low-energy absorption cross section.

Abstract: We study the effects of a spatially homogenous magnetic field in Bianchi-I cosmological models. In particular, we consider the case of a pure magnetic field and two models with dust and a massless scalar field (stiff matter), respectively. In all these cases, we analyze the approach to the singularity in some detail and comment on the issue of the singularity crossing.

Abstract: It was shown that a standard ring of light can be imagined outside the event horizon for stationary rotating four-dimensional black holes with axial symmetry using the topological method. Based on this concept, in this paper, we investigate the topological charge and the conditions of existence of the photon sphere (PS) for a hyperscaling violation (HSV) black hole with various values of the parameters of this model. Then, after carrying out a detailed analysis, we show the conventional topological classes viz $Q=-1$ for the mentioned black hole and $Q=0$ for the naked singularities. Also, we propose a new topological class for naked singularities ($Q=+1$) with respect to $z>1$. Then, we will use two different methods, namely the temperature (Duan's topological current $\Phi$-mapping theory) and the generalized Helmholtz free energy method, to study the topological classes of our black hole. By considering the black hole mentioned, we discuss the critical and zero points (topological charges and topological numbers) for different parameters of hyperscaling violating black holes, such as ($z, \theta$) and other free parameters, and study their thermodynamic topology. We observe that for a given value of the parameters $z$, $\theta$, and other free parameters, there exist two total topological charges $(Q_{t}=-1, 0)$ for the $T$ method and two total topological numbers $(W=+1)$ for the generalized Helmholtz free energy method. Additionally, we summarize the results for each study as photon sphere, temperature, and generalized Helmholtz free energy in some figures and tables. Finally, we compare our findings with other related studies in the literature.

Abstract: We present a 5D metric which interpolates between the standard 4D Schwarzschild metric with mass parameter $M$ and a new 4D $M$-deformed vacuum-defect-wormhole metric. The 5D spacetime can, in principle, have an infinite mass density that gives rise to the $M$ parameter of the 4D $M$-deformed vacuum-defect wormhole.

Abstract: This paper explores the evolutionary behavior of the Earth-satellite binary system within the framework of the ghost-free parity-violating gravity and the corresponding discussion on the parity-violating effect from the laser-ranged satellites. For this purpose, we start our study with the Parameterized Post-Newtonian (PPN) metric of this gravity theory to study the orbital evolution of the satellites in which the spatial-time sector of the spacetime is modified due to the parity violation. With this modified PPN metric, we calculate the effects of the parity-violating sector of metrics on the time evolution of the orbital elements for an Earth-satellite binary system. We find that among the five orbital elements, the parity violation has no effect on the semi-latus rectum, inclination and ascending node, which are the same as the results of general relativity and consistent with the observations of the current experiment. In particular, parity violation produces non-zero corrections to the eccentricity and pericenter, which will accumulate with the evolution of time, indicating that the parity violation of gravity produces observable effects. The observational constraint on the parity-violating effect is derived by confronting the theoretical prediction with the observation by the LAGEOS II pericenter advance, giving a constraint on the parity-violating parameter space from the satellite experiments.

Abstract: We investigate the production process of induced gravity waves due to large scalar fluctuations in the paradigm of quintessential inflation. We numerically solve the Mukhanov-Sasaki equation for different sets of parameters to obtain the power spectra. We demonstrate that the induced gravity wave signal generated in this framework can falls within the region of the NANOGrav data for chosen values of model parameters. We show that there is an allowed region of parameter space where the effect shifts to high frequency regime relevant to LISA and other available sensitivities.

Abstract: Theories of gravity based on teleparallel geometries are characterized by the torsion, which is a function of the coframe, derivatives of the coframe, and a zero curvature and metric compatible spin connection. The appropriate notion of a symmetry in a teleparallel geometry is that of an affine symmetry. Due to the importance of the de Sitter geometry and Einstein spaces within general relativity, we shall describe teleparallel de Sitter geometries and discuss their possible generalizations. In particular, we shall analyse a class of Einstein teleparallel geometries which have a 4-dimensional Lie algebra of affine symmetries, and display two one-parameter families of explicit exact solutions.