General Relativity And Quantum Cosmology

Fractional Newtonian gravity, based on the fractional generalization of Poisson's equation for Newtonian gravity, is a novel approach to Galactic dynamics aimed at providing an alternative to the dark matter paradigm through a non-local modification of Newton's theory. We provide an in-depth discussion of the gravitational potential for the Kuzmin disk within this new approach. Specifically, we derive an integral and a series representation for the potential, we verify its asymptotic behavior at large scales, and we provide illuminating plots of the resulting equipotential surfaces.

The mass contained in an arbitrary spacetime in general relativity is not well defined. However, for asymptotically flat spacetimes various definitions of mass have been proposed. In this paper I consider eight masses and show that some of them correspond to the active gravitational mass while the others correspond to the inertial mass. For example, the ADM mass corresponds to the inertial mass while the M ø ller mass corresponds to the active gravitational mass. In general the inertial and active gravitational masses are not equal. If the spacetime is vacuum at large r the Einstein equations force the inertial and active gravitational masses to be the same. The Einstein equations also force the masses to be the same if any matter that extends out to large r satisfies the weak, strong or dominant energy condition. I also examine the contributions of the inertial and active gravitational masses to the gravitational redshift, the deflection of light, the Shapiro time delay, the precession of perihelia and to the motion of test bodies in the spacetime.

Improvement of the classical gravity with the running gravitational coupling obtained from asymptotically safe gravity, is a good way of considering the effects of quantum gravity. This is usually done for metric theories of gravity. Here we investigate the effects of such an improvement for pure affine theories of gravity. To motivate the approach, we first consider the effects of quantum improvement on the connection using metric theory and investigate the effects on the causal structure of black hole solution. Next in the framework of Schrödinger-Eddington affine theory, the general way of affine improvement is presented and a spherically symmetric solution is obtained and compared with other ways of improvement.

Based on the canonical quantization of d?? dimensional General Relativity (GR) via the Dirac constraint formalism (also termed as 'constraint quantization'), we propose the loss of covariance as a fundamental property of the theory. This breakdown occurs for the first-order Einstein Hilbert action, whereby besides first class constraints, second class constriants also exist leading to non-standard ghost fields which render the path integral non-covariant. For the Hamiltonian formulation of GR, only first class constraints exist, however, the loss of covariance still happens due to structures arising from non-covariant constraints in the path integral. In contrast, covariance is preserved when constraint quantization is conducted for non-Abelian gauge theories, such as the Yang-Mills theory. Hence, we infer that the breakdown in space-time is a property of GR itself (for d?? dimensions). Covariance is recovered and quantization and perturbative calculations are possible in the weak limit of the gravitational field of these actions. Hence, we further propose that the breakdown of space-time occurs as a non-perturbative feature of GR in the strong limit of the theory. These findings are novel from a canonical gravity formalism standpoint, and are consistent with GR singularity theorems which indicate breakdown at a strong limit of the field. They also support emergent theories of spacetime and gravity, though do not require thermodynamics such as entropic gravity. From an effective field theory view, these indicate that new degrees of freedom in the non-perturbative sector of the full theory are a requirement, whereby covariance as a symmetry is broken in the high energy (strong field) sector. Our findings are also consistent with the recent resolution of the information loss paradox in black holes.

It is well known that non-local theories of gravity have been a flourish arena of studies for many reasons, for instance, the UV incompleteness of General Relativity (GR). In this paper we check the consistency of ST-homogeneous Gödel-type metrics within the non-local gravity framework. The non-local models considered here are ghost-free but not necessarily renormalizable since we focus on the classical solutions of the field equations. Furthermore, the non-locality is displayed in the action through transcendental entire functions of the d'Alembert operator ??that are mathematically represented by a power series of the ??-operator. We find two exactly solutions for the field equations correspondent to the degenerate ( ?=0 ) and hyperbolic ( m 2 =4 ? 2 ) classes of ST-homogeneous Gödel-type metrics.

Even though black hole scalarization is extensively studied recently, little has been done in the direction of understanding the dynamics of this process, especially in the rapidly rotating regime. In the present paper, we focus exactly on this problem by considering the nonlinear dynamics of the scalar field while neglecting the backreaction on the spacetime metric. This approach has proven to give good results in various scenarios and we have explicitly demonstrated its accuracy for nonrotating black holes especially close to the bifurcation point. We have followed the evolution of a black hole from a small initial perturbation, throughout the exponential growth of the scalar field followed by a subsequent saturation to an equilibrium configuration. As expected, even though the emitted signal and the time required to scalarize the black hole are dependent on the initial perturbation, the final stationary state that is reached is independent on the initial data.

In general, geometries of Petrov type II do not admit symmetries in terms of Killing vectors or spinors. We introduce a weaker form of Killing equations which do admit solutions. In particular, there is an analog of the Penrose-Walker Killing spinor. Some of its properties, including associated conservation laws, are discussed. Perturbations of Petrov type II Einstein geometries in terms of a complex scalar Debye potential yield complex solutions to the linearized Einstein equations. The complex linearized Weyl tensor is shown to be half Petrov type N. The remaining curvature component on the algebraically special side is reduced to a first order differential operator acting on the potential.

This article is the second of two in which we develop a geometric framework for analysing silent and anisotropic big bang singularities. In the present article, we record geometric conclusions obtained by combining the geometric framework with Einstein's equations. The main features of the results are the following: The assumptions do not involve any symmetry requirements and are weak enough to be consistent with most big bang singularities for which the asymptotic geometry is understood. The framework gives a clear picture of the asymptotic geometry. It also reproduces the Kasner map, conjectured in the physics literature to constitute the essence of the asymptotic dynamics for vacuum solutions to Einstein's equations. When combined with Einstein's equations, the framework yields partial improvements of the assumptions concerning, e.g., the expansion normalised Weingarten map K (one of the central objects of the framework, defined as the Weingarten map of the leaves of the foliation divided by the mean curvature). For example, the expansion normalised normal derivative of K can, under suitable assumptions concerning the eigenvalues of K , be demonstrated to decay exponentially and K can be demonstrated to converge exponentially, even though we initially only impose weighted bounds on these quantities. Finally, the framework gives a unified perspective on the existing results. Moreover, in 3+1 -dimensions, the only parameters necessary to interpret the results are the eigenvalues of K and an additional scalar function determined by the geometry induced on the leaves of the foliation. In the companion article, we obtain conclusions concerning the asymptotic behaviour of solutions to linear systems of wave equations on the backgrounds consistent with the framework.

It has been shown beyond reasonable doubt that the majority (about 95%) of the total energy budget of the universe is given by the dark components, namely Dark Matter and Dark Energy. What constitutes these components remains to be satisfactorily understood however, despite a number of promising candidates. An associated conundrum is that of the coincidence, i.e. the question as to why the Dark Matter and Dark Energy densities are of the same order of magnitude at the present epoch, after evolving over the entire expansion history of the universe. In an attempt to address these, we consider a quantum potential resulting from a quantum corrected Raychaudhuri/Friedmann equation in presence of a cosmic fluid, which is presumed to be a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of ultralight bosons. For a suitable and physically motivated macroscopic ground state wavefunction of the BEC, we show that a unified picture of the cosmic dark sector can indeed emerge, thus resolving the issue of the coincidence. The effective Dark energy component turns out to be a cosmological constant, by virtue of a residual homogeneous term in the quantum potential. Furthermore, comparison with the observational data gives an estimate of the mass of the constituent bosons in the BEC, which is well within the bounds predicted from other considerations.

A problematic feature of low energy scale inflationary models, such as Starobinsky inflation, in a spatially closed universe is the occurrence of a recollapse and a big crunch singularity before inflation can even set in. In a recent work it was shown that this problem can be successfully resolved in loop quantum cosmology for a large class of initial conditions due to a non-singular cyclic evolution and a hysteresis-like phenomena. However, for certain highly unfavorable initial conditions the onset of inflation was still difficult to obtain. In this work, we explore the role of dissipative particle production, which is typical in warm inflation scenario, in the above setting. We find that entropy production sourced by such dissipative effects makes hysteresis-like phenomena stronger. As a result, the onset of inflation is quick in general including for highly unfavorable initial conditions where it fails or is significantly delayed in the absence of dissipative effects. We phenomenologically consider three warm inflation scenarios with distinct forms of dissipation coefficient, and from dynamical solutions and phase space portraits find that the phase space of favorable initial conditions turns out to be much larger than in cold inflation.