General Relativity And Quantum Cosmology

In 1963 Ezra Ted Newman and his two students Louis A. Tamburino, and Theodore W. J. Unti, proposed a deformation of the Shwarzschild spacetime that made it twisting. In the cosmological context, an equivalent solution had been found earlier, in 1951, by Abraham Haskel Taub. The problem that these solutions have is a conical singularity along the symmetry axis at all distances from the origin. In 1969 Misner proposed a non-singular interpretation of Taub-NUT spacetimes. We extend and refine his method to include a broader family of solutions and completely solve the outstanding issue of a non-singular extension of the Kerr-NUT- (anti) de Sitter solutions to Einstein's equations. Our approach relies on an observation that in 2 dimensional algebra of Killing vector fields there exist 2 distinguished vector fields that may be used to define U(1) -principal bundle structure over the non-singular spaces of non-null orbits. For all admissible parameters we derive appropriate Killing vector fields and discuss limits to spacetimes with less parameters. The global structure of spacetime, together with non-singular conformal geometry of the infinities is presented and (possibly also projectively non-singular) Killing horizons is presented.

The strategy adopted in the original Morris-Thorne wormhole was to retain complete control over the geometry at the expense of certain engineering considerations. The purpose of this paper is to obtain several complete wormhole solutions by assuming a noncommutative-geometry background with a concomitant isotropic-pressure condition. This condition allows us to consider a cosmological setting with a perfect-fluid equation of state. An extended form of the equation generalizes the first solution and subsequently leads to the generalized Chaplygin-gas model and hence to a third solution. The solutions obtained extend several previous results. This paper also reiterates the need for a noncommutative-geometry background to account for the enormous radial tension that is characteristic of Morris-Thorne wormholes.

It was recently found that, when linearised in the absence of matter, 58 cases of the general gravitational theory with quadratic curvature and torsion are (i) free from ghosts and tachyons and (ii) power-counting renormalisable. We inspect the nonlinear Hamiltonian structure of the eight cases whose primary constraints do not depend on the curvature tensor. We confirm the particle spectra and unitarity of all these theories in the linear regime. We uncover qualitative dynamical changes in the nonlinear regimes of all eight cases, suggesting at least a broken gauge symmetry, and possibly the activation of negative kinetic energy spin-parity sectors and acausal behaviour. Two of the cases propagate a pair of massless modes at the linear level, and were interesting as candidate theories of gravity. However, we identify these modes with vector excitations, rather than the tensor polarisations of the graviton. Moreover, we show that these theories do not support a viable cosmological background.

The nonlinear memory effect is a fascinating prediction of general relativity (GR), in which oscillatory gravitational-wave (GW) signals are generically accompanied by a monotonically-increasing strain which persists in the detector long after the signal has passed. This effect presents a unique opportunity to test GR in the dynamical and nonlinear regime. In this article we calculate the nonlinear memory signal associated with GW bursts from cusps and kinks on cosmic string loops, which are an important target for current and future GW observatories. We obtain analytical waveforms for the GW memory from cusps and kinks, and use these to calculate the "memory of the memory" and other higher-order memory effects. These are among the first memory observables computed for a cosmological source of GWs, with previous literature having focused almost entirely on astrophysical sources. Surprisingly, we find that the cusp GW signal diverges for sufficiently large loops, and argue that the most plausible explanation for this divergence is a breakdown in the weak-field treatment of GW emission from the cusp. This shows that previously-neglected strong gravity effects must play an important role near cusps, although the exact mechanism by which they cure the divergence is not currently understood. We show that one possible resolution is for these cusps to collapse to form primordial black holes (PBHs); the kink memory signal does not diverge, in agreement with the fact that kinks are not predicted to form PBHs. Finally, we investigate the prospects for detecting memory from cusps and kinks with GW observatories. We find that in the scenario where the cusp memory divergence is cured by PBH formation, the memory signal is strongly suppressed and is not likely to be detected. However, alternative resolutions of the cusp divergence may in principle lead to much more favourable observational prospects.

Impulsive gravitational waves are (weak) solutions to the Einstein vacuum equations such that the Riemann curvature tensor admits a delta singularity along a null hypersurface. The interaction of impulsive gravitational waves is then represented by the transversal intersection of these singular null hypersurfaces. This is the first of a series of two papers in which we prove that for all suitable U(1) -symmetric initial data representing three "small amplitude" impulsive gravitational waves propagating towards each other transversally, there exists a local solution to the Einstein vacuum equations featuring the interaction of these waves. Moreover, we show that the solution remains Lipschitz everywhere and is H 2 loc ??C 1, 1 4 ??loc away from the impulsive gravitational waves. This is the first construction of solutions to the Einstein vacuum equations featuring the interaction of three impulsive gravitational waves. In this paper, we focus on the geometric estimates, i.e. we control the metric and the null hypersurfaces assuming the wave estimates. The geometric estimates rely crucially on the features of the spacetime with three interacting impulsive gravitational waves, particularly that each wave is highly localized and that the waves are transversal to each other. In the second paper of the series, we will prove the wave estimates and complete the proof.

In general, the laws of physics are not invariant under a change of scale. To find out whether the 'scale-invariance hypothesis' corresponds to nature or not, a careful examination to its implications is required. As a consequence, the scale-invariance cosmological models need to be carefully checked with many tests in order to confirm or disconfirm them. In this paper, three different toy models have been introduced in the framework of a scale-invariance cosmology to examine dark energy and cosmic transit. Although cosmic transit exists in the three models, the pressure stays always negative during cosmic evolution. In addition, there is always a singularity in the evolution of the equation of state parameter which is not suitable for a complete investigation of dark energy evolution. The undesirable features of the parameters have been discussed, and a comparison with other cosmological contexts has been done.

One of the best ways to understand the gravitation of a massive object is by studying the photon's motion around it. We study the null geodesic of a regular black hole in anti-de Sitter spacetime, including a Gaussian matter distribution. Obtaining the effective potential and possible motions of the photon are discussed for different energy levels. The nature of the effective potential implies that the photon is prevented from reaching the black hole's center. Different types of possible orbits are considered. A photon with negative energy is trapped in a potential hole and has a back and forth motion between two horizons of the metric. However, for specific values of positive energy, the trapped photon still has a back and forth motion; however, it crosses the horizons in every direction. The effective potential has an unstable point outside the horizons, which indicates the possible circular motion of the photon. The closest approach of the photon and the bending angle are also investigated.

Null shells are a useful geometric construction to study the propagation of infinitesimally thin concentrations of massless particles or impulsive waves. In this paper, we determine and study the necessary and sufficient conditions for the matching of two spacetimes with respective null embedded hypersurfaces as boundaries. Whenever the matching is possible, it is shown to depend on a diffeomorphism between the set of null generators in each boundary and a scalar function, called step function, that determines a shift of points along the null generators. Generically there exists at most one possible matching but in some circumstances this is not so. When the null boundaries are totally geodesic, the point-to-point identification between them introduces a freedom whose nature and consequences are analyzed in detail. The expression for the energy-momentum tensor of a general null shell is also derived. Finally, we find the most general shell (with non-zero energy, energy flux and pressure) that can be generated by matching two Minkowski regions across a null hyperplane. This allows us to show how the original Penrose's cut-and-paste construction fits and connects with the standard matching formalism.

Superradiant scattering of linear spin s=0,±1,±2 fields on Kerr black hole background is investigated in the time domain by integrating numerically the homogeneous Teukolsky master equation. The applied numerical setup has already been used in studying long time evolution and tail behavior of electromagnetic and metric perturbations on rotating black hole background [arXiv:1905.09082v3]. To have a clear setup the initial data is chosen to be of the compact support, while to optimize superradiance the frequency of the initial data is fine tuned. Our most important finding is that the rate of superradiance strongly depends on the relative position of the (compact) support of the initial data and the ergoregion. When they are well-separated then only a modest -- in case of s=0 scalar fields negligible -- superradiance occurs, whereas it can get to be amplified significantly whenever the support of the initial data and the ergoregion overlap.

A review of the pseudo-complex General Relativity (pc-GR) is presented, with the emphasis on observational consequences. First it is argued why to use an algebraic extension and why the pseudo-complex is a viable one. Afterward, the pc-GR is formulated. Posterior, several observational consequences are discussed, as the perihelion shift of Mercury, Quasi Periodic Objects, the emission profile of accretion discs, the pc-Robertson-Walker model of the universe, neutron stars and gravitational ring-down modes of a black hole.