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At least 775 records · Page 43
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DOE OSTI2013

On the non-attractive character of gravity in f(R) theories

In General Relativity without a cosmological constant a non-positive contribution from the space-time geometry to Raychaudhuri equation is found provided that particular energy conditions are assumed and regardless the considered solution of the Einstein's equations. This fact is usually interpreted as a manifestation of the attractive character of gravity. Nevertheless, a positive contribution to Raychaudhuri equation from space-time geometry should occur since this is the case in an accelerated expanding Robertson-Walker model for congruences followed by fundamental observers. Modified gravity theories provide the possibility of a positive contribution although the standard energy conditions are assumed. We address this important issue in the context of f(R) theories, deriving explicit upper bounds for the contribution of space-time geometry to the Raychaudhuri equation. Then, we examine the parameter constraints for some paradigmatic f(R) models in order to ensure a positive contribution to this equation. Furthermore, we consider the implications of these upper bounds in the equivalent formulation of f(R) theories as a Brans-Dicke model.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS2021

Gravitational-Wave Physics and Astronomy in the 2020s and 2030s

The 100 years since the publication of Albert Einstein’s theory of General Relativity saw significant development of the understanding of the theory, the identification of potential astrophysical sources of sufficiently strong gravitational waves, and development of key technologies for gravitational-wave detectors. In 2015, the first gravitational wave signals were detected by the two US Advanced LIGO instruments. In 2017, Advanced LIGO and the European Advanced Virgo detectors pinpointed a binary neutron star coalescence that was also seen across the electromagnetic spectrum. The field of gravitational wave astronomy is just starting, and this Roadmap of future developments surveys the potential for growth in bandwidth and sensitivity of future gravitational-wave detectors and discusses the science results anticipated to come from upcoming instruments.

Compact astrophysical objects↗
DOE OSTI2016

Strong gravitational lensing by a Konoplya-Zhidenko rotating non-Kerr compact object

Konoplya and Zhidenko have proposed recently a rotating non-Kerr black hole metric beyond General Relativity and make an estimate for the possible deviations from the Kerr solution with the data of GW 150914. We here study the strong gravitational lensing in such a rotating non-Kerr spacetime with an extra deformation parameter. We find that the condition of existence of horizons is not inconsistent with that of the marginally circular photon orbit. Moreover, the deflection angle of the light ray near the weakly naked singularity covered by the marginally circular orbit diverges logarithmically in the strong-field limit. In the case of the completely naked singularity, the deflection angle near the singularity tends to a certain finite value, whose sign depends on the rotation parameter and the deformation parameter. These properties of strong gravitational lensing are different from those in the Johannsen-Psaltis rotating non-Kerr spacetime and in the Janis-Newman-Winicour spacetime. Modeling the supermassive central object of the Milk Way Galaxy as a Konoplya-Zhidenko rotating non-Kerr compact object, we estimated the numerical values of observables for the strong gravitational lensing including the time delay between two relativistic images.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2012

PSEUDO-NEWTONIAN POTENTIALS FOR NEARLY PARABOLIC ORBITS

We describe a pseudo-Newtonian potential which, to within 1% error at all angular momenta, reproduces the precession due to general relativity of particles whose specific orbital energy is small compared to c{sup 2} in the Schwarzschild metric. For bound orbits, the constraint of low energy is equivalent to requiring the apoapsis of a particle to be large compared to the Schwarzschild radius. Such low-energy orbits are ubiquitous close to supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei, but the potential is relevant in any context containing particles on low-energy orbits. Like the more complex post-Newtonian expressions, the potential correctly reproduces the precession in the far field, but also correctly reproduces the position and magnitude of the logarithmic divergence in precession for low angular momentum orbits. An additional advantage lies in its simplicity, both in computation and implementation. We also provide two simpler, but less accurate potentials, for cases where orbits always remain at large angular momenta, or when the extra accuracy is not needed. In all of the presented cases, the accuracy in precession in low-energy orbits exceeds that of the well-known potential of Paczynski and Wiita, which has {approx}30% error in the precession at all angular momenta.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2012

Does loop quantum cosmology replace the big rip singularity by a non-singular bounce?

It is stated that holonomy corrections in loop quantum cosmology introduce a modification in Friedmann's equation which prevent the big rip singularity. Recently in [1] it has been proved that this modified Friedmann equation is obtained in an inconsistent way, what means that the results deduced from it, in particular the big rip singularity avoidance, are not justified. The problem is that holonomy corrections modify the gravitational part of the Hamiltonian of the system leading, after Legendre's transformation, to a non covariant Lagrangian which is in contradiction with one of the main principles of General Relativity. A more consistent way to deal with the big rip singularity avoidance is to disregard modification in the gravitational part of the Hamiltonian, and only consider inverse volume effects [2]. In this case we will see that, not like the big bang singularity, the big rip singularity survives in loop quantum cosmology. Another way to deal with the big rip avoidance is to take into account geometric quantum effects given by the the Wheeler-De Witt equation. In that case, even though the wave packets spread, the expectation values satisfy the same equations as their classical analogues. Then, following the viewpoint adopted in loop quantum cosmology, one can conclude that the big rip singularity survives when one takes into account these quantum effects. However, the spreading of the wave packets prevents the recover of the semiclassical time, and thus, one might conclude that the classical evolution of the universe come to and end before the big rip is reached. This is not conclusive because. as we will see, it always exists other external times that allows us to define the classical and quantum evolution of the universe up to the big rip singularity.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Ten scenarios from early radiation to late time acceleration with a minimally coupled dark energy

We consider General Relativity with matter, radiation and a minimally coupled dark energy defined by an equation of state w. Using dynamical system method, we find the equilibrium points of such a theory assuming an expanding Universe and a positive dark energy density. Two of these points correspond to classical radiation and matter dominated epochs for the Universe. For the other points, dark energy mimics matter, radiation or accelerates Universe expansion. We then look for possible sequences of epochs describing a Universe starting with some radiation dominated epoch(s) (mimicked or not by dark energy), then matter dominated epoch(s) (mimicked or not by dark energy) and ending with an accelerated expansion. We find ten sequences able to follow this Universe history without singular behaviour of w at some saddle points. Most of them are new in dark energy literature. To get more than these ten sequences, w has to be singular at some specific saddle equilibrium points. This is an unusual mathematical property of the equation of state in dark energy literature, whose physical consequences tend to be discarded by observations. This thus distinguishes the ten above sequences from an infinity of ways to describe Universe expansion.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

When is the growth index constant?

The growth index γ is an interesting tool to assess the phenomenology of dark energy (DE) models, in particular of those beyond general relativity (GR). We investigate the possibility for DE models to allow for a constant γ during the entire matter and DE dominated stages. It is shown that if DE is described by quintessence (a scalar field minimally coupled to gravity), this behaviour of γ is excluded either because it would require a transition to a phantom behaviour at some finite moment of time, or, in the case of tracking DE at the matter dominated stage, because the relative matter density Ω {sub m} appears to be too small. An infinite number of solutions, with Ω {sub m} and γ both constant, are found with w {sub DE} = 0 corresponding to Einstein-de Sitter universes. For all modified gravity DE models satisfying G {sub eff} ≥ G , among them the f ( R ) DE models suggested in the literature, the condition to have a constant w {sub DE} is strongly violated at the present epoch. In contrast, DE tracking dust-like matter deep in the matter era, but with Ω {sub m} <1, requires G {sub eff} > G and an example is given using scalar-tensor gravity for a range of admissible values of γ. For constant w {sub DE} inside GR, departure from a quasi-constant value is limited until today. Even a large variation of w {sub DE} may not result in a clear signature in the change of γ. The change however is substantial in the future and the asymptotic value of γ is found while its slope with respect to Ω {sub m} (and with respect to z ) diverges and tends to −∞.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

WARM JUPITERS NEED CLOSE ''FRIENDS'' FOR HIGH-ECCENTRICITY MIGRATION—A STRINGENT UPPER LIMIT ON THE PERTURBER'S SEPARATION

We propose a stringent observational test on the formation of warm Jupiters (gas-giant planets with 10 days ≲ P ≲ 100 days) by high-eccentricity (high-e) migration mechanisms. Unlike hot Jupiters, the majority of observed warm Jupiters have pericenter distances too large to allow efficient tidal dissipation to induce migration. To access the close pericenter required for migration during a Kozai-Lidov cycle, they must be accompanied by a strong enough perturber to overcome the precession caused by general relativity, placing a strong upper limit on the perturber's separation. For a warm Jupiter at a ∼ 0.2 AU, a Jupiter-mass (solar-mass) perturber is required to be ≲ 3 AU (≲ 30 AU) and can be identified observationally. Among warm Jupiters detected by radial velocities (RVs), ≳ 50% (5 out of 9) with large eccentricities (e ≳ 0.4) have known Jovian companions satisfying this necessary condition for high-e migration. In contrast, ≲ 20% (3 out of 17) of the low-e (e ≲ 0.2) warm Jupiters have detected additional Jovian companions, suggesting that high-e migration with planetary perturbers may not be the dominant formation channel. Complete, long-term RV follow-ups of the warm-Jupiter population will allow a firm upper limit to be put on the fraction of these planets formed by high-e migration. Transiting warm Jupiters showing spin-orbit misalignments will be interesting to apply our test. If the misalignments are solely due to high-e migration as commonly suggested, we expect that the majority of warm Jupiters with low-e (e ≲ 0.2) are not misaligned, in contrast with low-e hot Jupiters.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2010

TOWARD RELATIVISTIC ORBIT FITTING OF GALACTIC CENTER STARS AND PULSARS

The S stars orbiting the Galactic center black hole reach speeds of up to a few percent the speed of light during pericenter passage. This makes, for example, S2 at pericenter much more relativistic than known binary pulsars and opens up new possibilities for testing general relativity. This paper develops a technique for fitting nearly Keplerian orbits with perturbations from the Schwarzschild curvature, frame dragging, and the black hole spin-induced quadrupole moment, to redshift measurements distributed along the orbit but concentrated around pericenter. Both orbital and light-path effects are taken into account. It turns out that absolute calibration of rest-frame frequency is not required. Hence, if pulsars on orbits similar to the S stars are discovered, the technique described here can be applied without change, allowing the much greater accuracies of pulsar timing to be taken advantage of. For example, pulse timing of 3 {mu}s over 1 hr amounts to an effective redshift precision of 30 cm s{sup -1}, enough to measure frame dragging and the quadrupole moment from an S2-like orbit, provided problems like the Newtonian 'foreground' due to other masses can be overcome. On the other hand, if stars with orbital periods of order of a month are discovered, the same could be accomplished with stellar spectroscopy from the European Extremely Large Telescope at the level of 1 km s{sup -1}.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

The Effect of Modified Gravity on the Odds of the Bound Violations of the Turn-around Radii

The turn-around radii of the galaxy groups show the imprint of a long battle between their self-gravitational forces and the accelerating space. The standard ΛCDM cosmology based on the general relativity (GR) predicts the existence of an upper bound on the expectation value of the turn-around radius that is rarely violated by individual galaxy groups. We speculate that a deviation of the gravitational law from GR on the cosmological scale could cause an appreciable shift of the mean turn-around radius to higher values and make the occurrence of the bound violation more probable. Analyzing the data from high-resolution N-body simulations for two specific models with modified gravity (MG) and the standard GR+ΛCDM cosmology, we determine the turn-around radii of the massive Rockstar groups from the peculiar motions of the galactic halos located in the bound zone where the fifth force generated by MG is expected to be, at most, partially shielded. We detect a 4σ signal of difference in the odds of the bound violations between a fiducial MG and the GR models, which proves that the odds of the bound violations increase with the strength of the fifth force produced by the presence of MG. The advantage of using the odds of the bound violations as a complementary diagnostics to probe the nature of gravity is discussed.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2011

Gravitational repulsion within a black hole using the Stueckelberg quantum formalism

We wish to study an application of Stueckelberg's relativistic quantum theory in the framework of general relativity. We study the form of the wave equation of a massive body in the presence of a Schwarzschild gravitational field. We treat the mathematical behavior of the wavefunction also around and beyond the horizon (r= 2M). Classically, within the horizon, the time component of the metric becomes spacelike and distance from the origin singularity becomes timelike, suggesting an inevitable propagation of all matter within the horizon to a total collapse at r=0. However, the quantum description of the wavefunction provides a different understanding of the behavior of matter within the horizon. We find that a test particle can almost never be found at the origin and is more probable to be found at the horizon. Matter outside the horizon has a very small wavelength and therefore interference effects can be found only on a very small atomic scale. However, within the horizon, matter becomes totally 'tachyonic' and is potentially 'spread' over all space. Small location uncertainties on the atomic scale become large around the horizon, and different mass components of the wavefunction can therefore interfere on a stellar scale. This interference phenomenon, where the probability of finding matter decreases as a function of the distance from the horizon, appears as an effective gravitational repulsion.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2014

Constraining the spin and the deformation parameters from the black hole shadow

Within 5–10 years, very-long baseline interferometry (VLBI) facilities will be able to directly image the accretion flow around SgrA*, the super-massive black hole candidate at the center of the Galaxy, and observe the black hole ''shadow''. In 4-dimensional general relativity, the no-hair theorem asserts that uncharged black holes are described by the Kerr solution and are completely specified by their mass M and by their spin parameter a. In this paper, we explore the possibility of distinguishing Kerr and Bardeen black holes from their shadow. In Hioki and Maeda (2009), under the assumption that the background geometry is described by the Kerr solution, the authors proposed an algorithm to estimate the value of a/M by measuring the distortion parameter δ, an observable quantity that characterizes the shape of the shadow. Here, we try to extend their approach. Since the Hioki-Maeda distortion parameter is degenerate with respect to the spin and possible deviations from the Kerr solution, one has to measure another quantity to test the Kerr black hole hypothesis. We study a few possibilities. We find that it is extremely difficult to distinguish Kerr and Bardeen black holes from the sole observation of the shadow, and out of reach for the near future. The combination of the measurement of the shadow with possible accurate radio observations of a pulsar in a compact orbit around SgrA* could be a more promising strategy to verify the Kerr black hole paradigm.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Signatures of Horndeski gravity on the dark matter bispectrum

We present a detailed study of second-order matter perturbations for the general Horndeski class of models. Being the most general scalar-tensor theory having second-order equations of motion, it includes many known gravity and dark energy theories and General Relativity with a cosmological constant as a specific case. This enables us to estimate the leading order dark matter bispectrum generated at late-times by gravitational instability. We parametrize the evolution of the first and second-order equations of motion as proposed by Bellini and Sawicki (2014), where the free functions of the theory are assumed to be proportional to the dark energy density. We show that it is unnatural to have large ∼> 10% (∼> 1%) deviations of the bispectrum introducing even larger ∼ 30% (∼ 5%) deviations in the linear growth rate. Considering that measurements of the linear growth rate have much higher signal-to-noise than bispectrum measurements, this indicates that for Horndeski models which reproduce the expansion history and the linear growth rate as predicted by GR the dark matter bispectrum kernel can be effectively modelled as the standard GR one. On the other hand, an observation of a large bispectrum deviation that can not be explained in terms of bias would imply either that the evolution of perturbations is strongly different than the evolution predicted by GR or that the theory of gravity is exotic (e.g., breaks the weak equivalence principle) and/or fine-tuned.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Numerical Solutions for the Orbital Motion of the Solar System over the Past 100 Myr: Limits and New Results

I report results from accurate numerical integrations of solar system orbits over the past 100 Myr with the integrator package HNBody. The simulations used different integrator algorithms, step sizes, and initial conditions, and included effects from general relativity, different models of the Moon, the Sun’s quadrupole moment, and up to 16 asteroids. I also probed the potential effect of a hypothetical Planet 9, using one set of possible orbital elements. The most expensive integration (Bulirsch–Stoer) required 4 months of wall-clock time with a maximum relative energy error ≲3×10{sup −13}. The difference in Earth’s eccentricity (Δe{sub E}) was used to track the difference between two solutions, considered to diverge at time τ when max |Δe{sub E}| irreversibly crossed ∼10% of mean e{sub E} (∼0.028×0.1). The results indicate that finding a unique orbital solution is limited by initial conditions from current ephemerides and asteroid perturbations to ∼54 Myr. Bizarrely, the 4-month Bulirsch–Stoer integration and a symplectic integration that required only 5 hr of wall-clock time (12-day time step, with the Moon as a simple quadrupole perturbation), agree to ∼63 Myr. Internally, such symplectic integrations are remarkably consistent even for large time steps, suggesting that the relationship between time step and τ is not a robust indicator of the absolute accuracy of symplectic integrations. The effect of a hypothetical Planet 9 on Δe{sub E} becomes discernible at ∼65 Myr. Using τ as a criterion, the current state-of-the-art solutions all differ from previously published results beyond ∼50 Myr. I also conducted an eigenmode analysis, which provides some insight into the chaotic nature of the inner solar system. The current study provides new orbital solutions for applications in geological studies.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Testing a class of non-Kerr metrics with hot spots orbiting SgrA*

SgrA*, the supermassive black hole candidate at the Galactic Center, exhibits flares in the X-ray, NIR, and sub-mm bands that may be interpreted within a hot spot model. Light curves and images of hot spots orbiting a black hole are affected by a number of special and general relativistic effects, and they can be potentially used to check whether the object is a Kerr black hole of general relativity. However, in a previous study we have shown that the relativistic features are usually subdominant with respect to the background noise and the model-dependent properties of the hot spot, and eventually it is at most possible to estimate the frequency of the innermost stable circular orbit. In this case, tests of the Kerr metric are only possible in combination with other measurements. In the present work, we consider a class of non-Kerr spacetimes in which the hot spot orbit may be outside the equatorial plane. These metrics are difficult to constrain from the study of accretion disks and indeed current X-ray observations of stellar-mass and supermassive black hole candidates cannot put interesting bounds. Here we show that near future observations of SgrA* may do it. If the hot spot is sufficiently close to the massive object, the image affected by Doppler blueshift is brighter than the other one and this provides a specific observational signature in the hot spot's centroid track. We conclude that accurate astrometric observations of SgrA* with an instrument like GRAVITY should be able to test this class of metrics, except in the more unlikely case of a small viewing angle.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

BLACK HOLE-NEUTRON STAR MERGERS WITH A HOT NUCLEAR EQUATION OF STATE: OUTFLOW AND NEUTRINO-COOLED DISK FOR A LOW-MASS, HIGH-SPIN CASE

Neutrino emission significantly affects the evolution of the accretion tori formed in black hole-neutron star mergers. It removes energy from the disk, alters its composition, and provides a potential power source for a gamma-ray burst. To study these effects, simulations in general relativity with a hot microphysical equation of state (EOS) and neutrino feedback are needed. We present the first such simulation, using a neutrino leakage scheme for cooling to capture the most essential effects and considering a moderate mass (1.4 M{sub ☉} neutron star, 5.6 M{sub ☉} black hole), high-spin (black hole J/M {sup 2} = 0.9) system with the K{sub 0} = 220 MeV Lattimer-Swesty EOS. We find that about 0.08 M{sub ☉} of nuclear matter is ejected from the system, while another 0.3 M{sub ☉} forms a hot, compact accretion disk. The primary effects of the escaping neutrinos are (1) to make the disk much denser and more compact, (2) to cause the average electron fraction Y{sub e} of the disk to rise to about 0.2 and then gradually decrease again, and (3) to gradually cool the disk. The disk is initially hot (T ∼ 6 MeV) and luminous in neutrinos (L{sub ν} ∼ 10{sup 54} erg s{sup –1}), but the neutrino luminosity decreases by an order of magnitude over 50 ms of post-merger evolution.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2011

Stability of general-relativistic accretion disks

Self-gravitating relativistic disks around black holes can form as transient structures in a number of astrophysical scenarios such as binary neutron star and black hole-neutron star coalescences, as well as the core collapse of massive stars. We explore the stability of such disks against runaway and nonaxisymmetric instabilities using three-dimensional hydrodynamics simulations in full general relativity using the Thor code. We model the disk matter using the ideal fluid approximation with a {Gamma}-law equation of state with {Gamma}=4/3. We explore three disk models around nonrotating black holes with disk-to-black hole mass ratios of 0.24, 0.17, and 0.11. Because of metric blending in our initial data, all of our initial models contain an initial axisymmetric perturbation which induces radial disk oscillations. Despite these oscillations, our models do not develop the runaway instability during the first several orbital periods. Instead, all of the models develop unstable nonaxisymmetric modes on a dynamical time scale. We observe two distinct types of instabilities: the Papaloizou-Pringle and the so-called intermediate type instabilities. The development of the nonaxisymmetric mode with azimuthal number m=1 is accompanied by an outspiraling motion of the black hole, which significantly amplifies the growth rate of the m=1 mode in some cases. Overall, our simulations show that the properties of the unstable nonaxisymmetric modes in our disk models are qualitatively similar to those in the Newtonian theory.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

New insights into supradense matter from dissecting scaled stellar structure equations

The strong-field gravity in general relativity (GR) realized in neutron stars (NSs) renders the equation of state (EOS) P(ε) of supradense neutron star matter to be essentially nonlinear and refines the upper bound for Φ ≡ P/ε to be much smaller than the special relativity (SR) requirement with linear EOSs, where P and ε are respectively the pressure and energy density of the system considered. Specifically, a tight bound Φ ≲ 0.374 is obtained by perturbatively anatomizing the intrinsic structures of the scaled Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff (TOV) equations without using any input nuclear EOS. New insights gained from this novel analysis provide EOS-model-independent constraints on the properties (e.g., density profiles of the sound speed squared s 2 = dP/dε and trace anomaly Δ = 1/3 – Φ) of cold supradense matter in NS cores. Using the gravity-matter duality in theories describing NSs, we investigate the impact of gravity on supradense matter EOS in NSs. In particular, we show that the NS mass M NS , radius R, and compactness ξ ≡ M NS /R scale with certain combinations of its central pressure and energy density (encapsulating its central EOS). Thus, observational data on these properties of NSs can straightforwardly constrain NS central EOSs without relying on any specific nuclear EOS model.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗