Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “General Relativity”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 577 records · Page 32
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2014

Dark matter as a ghost free conformal extension of Einstein theory

We discuss ghost free models of the recently suggested mimetic dark matter theory. This theory is shown to be a conformal extension of Einstein general relativity. Dark matter originates from gauging out its local Weyl invariance as an extra degree of freedom which describes a potential flow of the pressureless perfect fluid. For a positive energy density of this fluid the theory is free of ghost instabilities, which gives strong preference to stable configurations with a positive scalar curvature and trace of the matter stress tensor. Instabilities caused by caustics of the geodesic flow, inherent in this model, serve as a motivation for an alternative conformal extension of Einstein theory, based on the generalized Proca vector field. A potential part of this field modifies the inflationary stage in cosmology, whereas its rotational part at the post inflationary epoch might simulate rotating flows of dark matter.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Dark matter relic density in Gauss-Bonnet braneworld cosmology

The relic density of symmetric and asymmetric dark matter in a Gauss-Bonnet (GB) modified Randall-Sundrum (RS) type II braneworld cosmology is investigated. The existing study of symmetric dark matter in a GB braneworld (Okada and Okada, 2009) found that the expansion rate was reduced compared to that in standard General Relativity (GR), thereby delaying particle freeze-out and resulting in relic abundances which are suppressed by up to O(10{sup −2}). This is in direct contrast to the behaviour observed in RS braneworlds where the expansion rate is enhanced and the final relic abundance boosted. However, this finding that relic abundances are suppressed in a GB braneworld is based upon a highly contrived situation in which the GB era evolves directly into a standard GR era, rather than passing through a RS era as is the general situation. This collapse of the RS era requires equating the mass scale m{sub α} of the GB modification and the mass scale m{sub σ} of the brane tension. However, if the GB contribution is to be considered as the lowest order correction from string theory to the RS action, we would expect m{sub α} > m{sub σ}. We investigate the effect upon the relic abundance of choosing more realistic values for the ratio R{sub m} ≡ m{sub α}/m{sub σ} and find that the relic abundance can be either enhanced or suppressed by more than two orders of magnitude. However, suppression only occurs for a small range of parameter choices and, overwhelmingly, the predominant situation is that of enhancement as we recover the usual Randall-Sundrum type behaviour in the limit R{sub m} >> 1. We use the latest observational bound Ω{sub DM}h{sup 2} = 0.1187 ± 0.0017 to constrain the various model parameters and briefly discuss the implications for direct/indirect dark matter detection experiments as well as dark matter particle models.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Phase effects from strong gravitational lensing of gravitational waves

Assessing the probability that two or more gravitational wave (GW) events are lensed images of the same source requires an understanding of the properties of the lensed images. For short enough wavelengths where wave effects can be neglected, lensed images will generically have a fixed relative phase shift that needs to be taken into account in the lensing hypothesis. For non-precessing, circular binaries dominated by quadrupole radiation these lensing phase shifts are degenerate with either a shift in the coalescence phase or a detector and inclination dependent shift in the orientation angle. This degeneracy is broken by the presence of higher harmonic modes with |m| ≠ 2 in the former and |m| ≠ l in the latter. The presence of precession or eccentricity will also break this degeneracy. This implies that a lensed GW image will not necessarily be consistent with (unlensed) predictions from general relativity (GR). Therefore, unlike the conventional scenario of electromagnetic waves, strong lensing of GWs can lead to images with a modified phase evolution that can be observed. However, we find that templates with a shifted orientation angle remain a good approximation, with signal-to-noise ratio differences of less than 1% for mass ratios up to 1/18, and less than 5% for precession parameters up to 0.5 and eccentricities up to 0.4. We conclude that an optimal strong lensing search strategy would incorporate phase information in all stages of the identification of strong-lensing, with an exact treatment in the final assessment of the probability of multiple lensed events. Here, this work clarifies the role that strong lensing plays in the phase evolution of GWs: how it can lead to apparent deviations from GR, how it can affect the detectability of GW events, and how it can be exploited to help identify cases of strong gravitational lensing of gravitational wave sources.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Mário Schenberg: Physicist, politician and art critic

Mário Schenberg is considered one of the greatest theoretical physicists of Brazil. He worked in different fields of physics including thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, general relativity, astrophysics and mathematics. He was assistant of the Ukrainian naturalized Italian physicist Gleb Wataghin and worked with prestigious physicists like as the Brazilians José Leite Lopes and César Lattes, the Russian-born American George Gamow and the Indian astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Besides, he was also an active politician and critic of art.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2013

Hawking-Moss instanton in nonlinear massive gravity

As a first step toward understanding a lanscape of vacua in a theory of non-linear massive gravity, we consider a landscape of a single scalar field and study tunneling between a pair of adjacent vacua. We study the Hawking-Moss (HM) instanton that sits at a local maximum of the potential, and evaluate the dependence of the tunneling rate on the parameters of the theory. It is found that provided with the same physical HM Hubble parameter H{sub HM}, depending on the values of parameters α{sub 3} and α{sub 4} in the action (2.2), the corresponding tunneling rate can be either enhanced or suppressed when compared to the one in the context of General Relativity (GR). Furthermore, we find the constraint on the ratio of the physical Hubble parameter to the fiducial one, which constrains the form of potential. This result is in sharp contrast to GR where there is no bound on the minimum value of the potential.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Phenomenology in minimal theory of massive gravity

We investigate the minimal theory of massive gravity (MTMG) recently introduced. After reviewing the original construction based on its Hamiltonian in the vielbein formalism, we reformulate it in terms of its Lagrangian in both the vielbein and the metric formalisms. It then becomes obvious that, unlike previous attempts in the literature of Lorentz-violating massive gravity, not only the potential but also the kinetic structure of the action is modified from the de Rham-Gabadadze-Tolley (dRGT) massive gravity theory. We confirm that the number of physical degrees of freedom in MTMG is two at fully nonlinear level. This proves the absence of various possible pathologies such as superluminality, acausality and strong coupling. Afterwards, we discuss the phenomenology of MTMG in the presence of a dust fluid. We find that on a flat homogeneous and isotropic background we have two branches. One of them (self-accelerating branch) naturally leads to acceleration without the genuine cosmological constant or dark energy. For this branch both the scalar and the vector modes behave exactly as in general relativity (GR). The phenomenology of this branch differs from GR in the tensor modes sector, as the tensor modes acquire a non-zero mass. Hence, MTMG serves as a stable nonlinear completion of the self-accelerating cosmological solution found originally in dRGT theory. The other branch (normal branch) has a dynamics which depends on the time-dependent fiducial metric. For the normal branch, the scalar mode sector, even though as in GR only one scalar mode is present (due to the dust fluid), differs from the one in GR, and, in general, structure formation will follow a different phenomenology. The tensor modes will be massive, whereas the vector modes, for both branches, will have the same phenomenology as in GR.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2012

TWO MILLISECOND PULSARS DISCOVERED BY THE PALFA SURVEY AND A SHAPIRO DELAY MEASUREMENT

We present two millisecond pulsar discoveries from the PALFA survey of the Galactic plane with the Arecibo telescope. PSR J1955+2527 is an isolated pulsar with a period of 4.87 ms, and PSR J1949+3106 has a period of 13.14 ms and is in a 1.9 day binary system with a massive companion. Their timing solutions, based on 4 years of timing measurements with the Arecibo, Green Bank, Nancay, and Jodrell Bank telescopes, allow precise determination of spin and astrometric parameters, including precise determinations of their proper motions. For PSR J1949+3106, we can clearly detect the Shapiro delay. From this we measure the pulsar mass to be 1.47{sup +0.43}{sub -0.31} M{sub Sun }, the companion mass to be 0.85{sup +0.14}{sub -0.11} M{sub Sun }, and the orbital inclination to be i = 79.9{sup -1.9}{sub +1.6} deg, where uncertainties correspond to {+-}1{sigma} confidence levels. With continued timing, we expect to also be able to detect the advance of periastron for the J1949+3106 system. This effect, combined with the Shapiro delay, will eventually provide very precise mass measurements for this system and a test of general relativity.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2011

Constraining spacetime torsion with the Moon and Mercury

We report a search for new gravitational physics phenomena based on Riemann-Cartan theory of general relativity including spacetime torsion. Starting from the parametrized torsion framework of Mao, Tegmark, Guth, and Cabi, we analyze the motion of test bodies in the presence of torsion, and, in particular, we compute the corrections to the perihelion advance and to the orbital geodetic precession of a satellite. We consider the motion of a test body in a spherically symmetric field, and the motion of a satellite in the gravitational field of the Sun and the Earth. We describe the torsion field by means of three parameters, and we make use of the autoparallel trajectories, which in general differ from geodesics when torsion is present. We derive the specific approximate expression of the corresponding system of ordinary differential equations, which are then solved with methods of celestial mechanics. We calculate the secular variations of the longitudes of the node and of the pericenter of the satellite. The computed secular variations show how the corrections to the perihelion advance and to the orbital de Sitter effect depend on the torsion parameters. All computations are performed under the assumptions of weak field and slow motion. To test our predictions, we use the measurements of the Moon's geodetic precession from lunar laser ranging data, and the measurements of Mercury's perihelion advance from planetary radar ranging data. These measurements are then used to constrain suitable linear combinations of the torsion parameters.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2010

Bimetric theory of gravity from the nonchiral Plebanski action

We study a modification of the Plebanski action for general relativity, which leads to a modified theory of gravity with 8 degrees of freedom. We show how the action can be recasted as a bimetric theory of gravity, and expanding around a biflat background we identify the 6 extra degrees of freedom with a second, massive graviton and a scalar mode.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Trigonometric parallaxes of high mass star forming regions: the structure and kinematics of the Milky Way

Over 100 trigonometric parallaxes and proper motions for masers associated with young, high-mass stars have been measured with the Bar and Spiral Structure Legacy Survey, a Very Long Baseline Array key science project, the European VLBI Network, and the Japanese VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry project. These measurements provide strong evidence for the existence of spiral arms in the Milky Way, accurately locating many arm segments and yielding spiral pitch angles ranging from about 7° to 20°. The widths of spiral arms increase with distance from the Galactic center. Fitting axially symmetric models of the Milky Way with the three-dimensional position and velocity information and conservative priors for the solar and average source peculiar motions, we estimate the distance to the Galactic center, R {sub 0}, to be 8.34 ± 0.16 kpc, a circular rotation speed at the Sun, Θ{sub 0}, to be 240 ± 8 km s{sup –1}, and a rotation curve that is nearly flat (i.e., a slope of –0.2 ± 0.4 km s{sup –1} kpc{sup –1}) between Galactocentric radii of ≈5 and 16 kpc. Assuming a 'universal' spiral galaxy form for the rotation curve, we estimate the thin disk scale length to be 2.44 ± 0.16 kpc. With this large data set, the parameters R {sub 0} and Θ{sub 0} are no longer highly correlated and are relatively insensitive to different forms of the rotation curve. If one adopts a theoretically motivated prior that high-mass star forming regions are in nearly circular Galactic orbits, we estimate a global solar motion component in the direction of Galactic rotation, V {sub ☉} = 14.6 ± 5.0 km s{sup –1}. While Θ{sub 0} and V {sub ☉} are significantly correlated, the sum of these parameters is well constrained, Θ{sub 0} + V {sub ☉} = 255.2 ± 5.1 km s{sup –1}, as is the angular speed of the Sun in its orbit about the Galactic center, (Θ{sub 0} + V {sub ☉})/R {sub 0} = 30.57 ± 0.43 km s{sup –1} kpc{sup –1}. These parameters improve the accuracy of estimates of the accelerations of the Sun and the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar in their Galactic orbits, significantly reducing the uncertainty in tests of gravitational radiation predicted by general relativity.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Comparing fully general relativistic and Newtonian calculations of structure formation

In the standard approach to studying cosmological structure formation, the overall expansion of the Universe is assumed to be homogeneous, with the gravitational effect of inhomogeneities encoded entirely in a Newtonian potential. A topic of ongoing debate is to what degree this fully captures the dynamics dictated by general relativity, especially in the era of precision cosmology. To quantitatively assess this, in this paper we directly compare standard N-body Newtonian calculations to full numerical solutions of the Einstein equations, for cold matter with various magnitude initial inhomogeneities on scales comparable to the Hubble horizon. We analyze the differences in the evolution of density, luminosity distance, and other quantities defined with respect to fiducial observers. This is carried out by reconstructing the effective spacetime and matter fields dictated by the Newtonian quantities, and by taking care to distinguish effects of numerical resolution. We find that the fully general relativistic and Newtonian calculations show excellent agreement, even well into the nonlinear regime. Finally, they only notably differ in regions where the weak gravity assumption breaks down, which arise when considering extreme cases with perturbations exceeding standard values.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Cosmic matrix in the jubilee of relativistic astrophysics

Following the classical works on Neutron Stars, Black Holes and Cosmology, I outline some recent results obtained in the IRAP-PhD program of ICRANet on the “Cosmic Matrix”: a new astrophysical phenomenon recorded by the X- and Gamma-Ray satellites and by the largest ground based optical telescopes all over our planet. In 3 minutes it has been recorded the occurrence of a “Supernova”, the “Induced-Gravitational-Collapse” on a Neutron Star binary, the formation of a “Black Hole”, and the creation of a “Newly Born Neutron Star”. This presentation is based on a document describing activities of ICRANet and recent developments of the paradigm of the Cosmic Matrix in the comprehension of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) presented on the occasion of the Fourteenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting on Recent Developments in Theoretical and Experimental General Relativity, Gravitation, and Relativistic Field Theory. A Portuguese version of this document can be downloaded at: http://www.icranet.org/documents/brochure{sub i}cranet{sub p}t.pdf.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2013

Can non-local or higher derivative theories provide alternatives to inflation?

The standard mechanism for producing the observed scale-invariant power spectrum from adiabatic vacuum fluctuations relies on first order derivative of fields in the action for curvature perturbations. It has been proven [1] that, under this ansatz, any theory of early universe that matches cosmological observations should include a phase of accelerated expansion (i.e. inflation) or it has to break at least one of the following tenets of classical general relativity: Null Energy Conditions (NEC), subluminal signal propagation, or sub-Planckian energy densities. We extend this proof to a large class of theories with higher (spatial) derivative or non-local terms in the action. Interestingly, only theories in the neighborhood of Lifshitz points with ω{sub k}∝k{sup 0} and k{sup 3} remain viable.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Scalar field cosmologies with inverted potentials

Regular bouncing solutions in the framework of a scalar-tensor gravity model were found in a recent work. We reconsider the problem in the Einstein frame (EF) in the present work. Singularities arising at the limit of physical viability of the model in the Jordan frame (JF) are either of the Big Bang or of the Big Crunch type in the EF. As a result we obtain integrable scalar field cosmological models in general relativity (GR) with inverted double-well potentials unbounded from below which possess solutions regular in the future, tending to a de Sitter space, and starting with a Big Bang. The existence of the two fixed points for the field dynamics at late times found earlier in the JF becomes transparent in the EF.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Constraining cosmic expansion and gravity with galaxy redshift surveys

We analyze the science reach of a next generation galaxy redshift survey such as BigBOSS to fit simultaneously for time varying dark energy equation of state and time- and scale-dependent gravity. The simultaneous fit avoids potential bias from assuming ΛCDM expansion or general relativity and leads to only modest degradation in constraints. Galaxy bias, fit freely in redshift bins, is self calibrated by spectroscopic measurements of redshift space distortions and causes little impact. The combination of galaxy redshift, cosmic microwave background, and supernova distance data can deliver 5-10% constraints on 6 model independent modified gravity quantities.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

DIFFICULTY IN THE FORMATION OF COUNTER-ORBITING HOT JUPITERS FROM NEAR-COPLANAR HIERARCHICAL TRIPLE SYSTEMS: A SUB-STELLAR PERTURBER

Among 100 transiting planets with a measured projected spin–orbit angle λ, several systems are suggested to be counter-orbiting. While these cases may be due to the projection effect, the mechanism that produces a counter-orbiting planet has not been established. A promising scenario for counter-orbiting planets is the extreme eccentricity evolution in near-coplanar hierarchical triple systems with eccentric inner and outer orbits. We examine this scenario in detail by performing a series of systematic numerical simulations, and consider the possibility of forming hot Jupiters (HJs), especially a counter-orbiting one under this mechanism with a distant sub-stellar perturber. We incorporate quadrupole and octupole secular gravitational interaction between the two orbits, and also short-range forces (correction for general relativity, star and inner planetary tide, and rotational distortion) simultaneously. We find that most systems are tidally disrupted and that a small fraction of the surviving planets turn out to be prograde. The formation of counter-orbiting HJs in this scenario is possible only in a very restricted parameter region, and thus is very unlikely in practice.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS2002

Short-range inverse-square law experiment in space

Newton's inverse-square law is a cornerstone of General Relativity. Its validity has been demonstrated to better than one part in thousand in ranges greater than 1 cm. The range below 1 mm has been left largely unexplored, due to the difficulties associated with designing sensitive short-range experiments. However, the theoretical rationale for testing Newton's law at ranges below 1 mm has become very strong recently.

inverse square law general relativity short range ↗
DOE OSTI2019

Multi-messenger EOS constraints using binary NS mergers

Though nearly five decades in the making, the opening mark of gravitational wave (GW) astronomy has only just now sounded. This novel field holds great scientific promise in the upcoming years, and yet already with a single binary NS merger event — it has managed to deliver results beyond our hopes and expectations. A primary factor in this success is the fact that this first binary NS merger, GW170817, was successfully followed up and detected in wavelengths spanning the observable electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. This ‘multi-messenger’ view of binary NS mergers opens new windows of opportunity for maximizing the scientific return from these events, and has facilitated constraints on physics ranging from cosmology, to general relativity, and nuclear physics. In the following I review constraints on the equation of state (EOS) of dense nuclear matter which can be obtained from multi-messenger analyses of binary NS mergers, showing that these are complementary to alternative approaches of constraining the EOS using GW data alone, and summarizing the main results arising from GW170817.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗