Sources of gravitational waves in asymptotically flat Einstein-Maxwell spacetime

In this work, the dynamic of isolated systems in general relativity is described when gravitational radiation and electromagnetic fields are present. In this construction, the asymptotic fields received at null infinity together with the regularized null cone cuts equation, and the center of mass of an asymptotically flat Einstein-Maxwell spacetime are used. A set of equations are derived in the low speed regime, linking their time evolution to the emitted gravitational radiation and to the Maxwell fields received at infinity. These equations should be useful when describing the dynamic of compact sources, such as the final moments of binary coalescence and the evolution of the final black hole. Additionally, we compare our equations with those coming from a similar approach given by Newman, finding some differences in the motion of the center of mass and spin of the gravitational system.     

Gravitational field of a tachyon in a de Sitter universe

An exact solution of Einstein’s equations is interpreted as describing the gravitational field of a tachyon in a de Sitter universe. Switching off the cosmological constant yields the gravitational field of a tachyon in flat spacetime background.     

A Modified Gravity Theory: Null Aether

General quantum gravity arguments predict that Lorentz symmetry might not hold exactly in nature. This has motivated much interest in Lorentz breaking gravity theories recently. Among such models are vector-tensor theories with preferred direction established at every point of spacetime by a fixed-norm vector field. The dynamical vector field defined in this way is referred to as the "aether". In this paper, we put forward the idea of a null aether field and introduce, for the first time, the Null Aether Theory(NAT) — a vector-tensor theory. We first study the Newtonian limit of this theory and then construct exact spherically symmetric black hole solutions in the theory in four dimensions, which contain Vaidya-type non-static solutions and static Schwarzschild-(A)dS type solutions, Reissner-Nordstr?m-(A)dS type solutions and solutions of conformal gravity as special cases. Afterwards, we study the cosmological solutions in NAT:We find some exact solutions with perfect fluid distribution for spatially flat FLRW metric and null aether propagating along the x direction. We observe that there are solutions in which the universe has big-bang singularity and null field diminishes asymptotically. We also study exact gravitational wave solutions — AdS-plane waves and pp-waves — in this theory in any dimension D ≥ 3. Assuming the Kerr-Schild-Kundt class of metrics for such solutions, we show that the full field equations of the theory are reduced to two, in general coupled, differential equations when the background metric assumes the maximally symmetric form. The main conclusion of these computations is that the spin-0 aether field acquires a "mass" determined by the cosmological constant of the background spacetime and the Lagrange multiplier given in the theory.     

Einstein-aether theory with a Maxwell field: General formalism

We extend the Einstein-aether theory to include the Maxwell field in a nontrivial manner by taking into account its interaction with the time-like unit vector field characterizing the aether. We also include a generic matter term. We present a model with a Lagrangian that includes cross-terms linear and quadratic in the Maxwell tensor, linear and quadratic in the covariant derivative of the aether velocity four-vector, linear in its second covariant derivative and in the Riemann tensor. We decompose these terms with respect to the irreducible parts of the covariant derivative of the aether velocity, namely, the acceleration four-vector, the shear and vorticity tensors, and the expansion scalar. Furthermore, we discuss the influence of an aether non-uniform motion on the polarization and magnetization of the matter in such an aether environment, as well as on its dielectric and magnetic properties. The total self-consistent system of equations for the electromagnetic and the gravitational fields, and the dynamic equations for the unit vector aether field are obtained. Possible applications of this system are discussed. Based on the principles of effective field theories, we display in an appendix all the terms up to fourth order in derivative operators that can be considered in a Lagrangian that includes the metric, the electromagnetic and the aether fields.     

The weight of extended bodies in a gravitational field with flat spacetime

Einstein's gravitational field equations in empty space outside a massive plane with infinite extension give a class of solutions describing a field with flat spacetime giving neutral, freely moving particles an acceleration. This points to the necessity of defining the concept gravitational field not simply by the nonvanishing of the Riemann curvature tensor, but by the nonvanishing of certain elements of the Christoffel symbols, called the physical elements, or the nonvanishing of the Riemann curvature tensor. The tidal component of a gravitational field is associated with a nonvanishing Riemann tensor, while the nontidal components are associated with nonvanishing physical elements of the Christoffel symbols. Spacetime in a nontidal gravitational field is flat. Such a field may be separated into a homogeneous and a rotational component. In order to exhibit the physical significance of these components in relation to their transformation properties, coordinate transformations inside a given reference frame are discussed. The mentioned solutions of Einstein's field equations lead to a metric identical to that obtained as a result of a transformation from an inertial frame to a uniformly accelerated frame. The validity of the strong principle of equivalence in extended regions for nontidal gravitational fields is made clear. An exact calculation of the weight of an extended body in a uniform gravitational field, from a global point of view, gives the result that its weight is independent of the position of the scale on the body.     

Cawley's counterexample to Dirac's conjecture as a curved spacetime

Cawley's counterexample Lagrangian to Dirac's conjecture on dynamical systems is modified to a line element in curved spacetime, and the energy-momentum tensor corresponding to such a spacetime is found. The spacetime obtained satisfies the Einstein field equations and describes a three-dimensional matterfilled universe. It is further shown that such a universe cannot be filled up with other sources, such as a perfect fluid, a scalar field, or an electromagnetic field, without violating the Einstein field equations.     

The fields of uniformly accelerated charges in de Sitter spacetime

The scalar and electromagnetic fields of charges uniformly accelerated in de Sitter spacetime are constructed. They represent the generalization of the Born solutions describing fields of two particles with hyperbolic motion in flat spacetime. In the limit Lambda-->0, the Born solutions are retrieved. Since in the de Sitter universe the infinities I+/- are spacelike, the radiative properties of the fields depend on the way in which a given point of I+/- is approached. The fields must involve both retarded and advanced effects: Purely retarded fields do not satisfy the constraints at the past infinity I-.     

The Clifford bundle and the nature of the gravitational field

In this paper we formulate Einstein's gravitational theory with the Clifford bundle formalism. The formalism suggests interpreting the gravitational field in the sense of Faraday, i.e., with the field residing in Minkowski spacetime. We succeeded in discovering the condition for this interpretation to hold. For the variables that play the role of the gravitational field in our theory, the Lagrangian density turns out to be of the Yang-Mills type (with an auto-interaction plus gauge-fixing terms). We give a brief comparison of our theory with other field theories of the gravitational field in the flat Minkowski spacetime.     

Relativistic motion of a free particle in a uniform gravitational field

The problem of the motion of a free particle in a uniform gravitational field is considered. A relativistic solution based on the assumption that the motion is a consequence of the curvature of spacetime is obtained. The results are compared with various results based on the assumption that spacetime is flat in a region in which the gravitational field is uniform. In the curved spacetime approach, if a particle is projected from a point in a uniform gravitational field, the vertical distance covered by the particle in infinite coordinate time is infinite, but the horizontal distance covered and the elapsed proper time of the particle are finite. If spacetime is assumed to be flat and the gravitational motion of a particle a consequence of a relativistic force proportional to the relative mass of the particle, then the results obtained for the motion of a particle in a uniform gravitational field are close to the curved spacetime results. All other assumptions, including the assumption that the motion of a particle in a uniform gravitational field is equivalent to the motion of a particle in a uniformly accelerating frame of reference, lead to results in serious disagreement with the curved spacetime results.     

On a remarkable electromagnetic field in the Einstein Universe

We present a time-dependent solution of the Maxwell equations in the Einstein universe, whose electric and magnetic fields, as seen by the stationary observers, are aligned with the Clifford parallels of the 3-sphere \(S^3\). The conformal equivalence between Minkowski’s spacetime and (a region of) the Einstein cylinder is then exploited in order to obtain a knotted, finite energy, radiating solution of the Maxwell equations in flat spacetime. We also discuss similar electromagnetic fields in expanding closed Friedmann models, and compute the matter content of such configurations.     

Stochastic Spacetime and Brownian Motion of Test Particles

The operational meaning of spacetime fluctuations is discussed. Classical spacetime geometry can be viewed as encoding the relations between the motions of test particles in the geometry. By analogy, quantum fluctuations of spacetime geometry can be interpreted in terms of the fluctuations of these motions. Thus, one can give meaning to spacetime fluctuations in terms of observables which describe the Brownian motion of test particles. We will first discuss some electromagnetic analogies, where quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field induce Brownian motion of test particles. We next discuss several explicit examples of Brownian motion caused by a fluctuating gravitational field. These examples include lightcone fluctuations, variations in the flight times of photons through the fluctuating geometry, and fluctuations in the expansion parameter given by a Langevin version of the Raychaudhuri equation. The fluctuations in this parameter lead to variations in the luminosity of sources. Other phenomena that can be linked to spacetime fluctuations are spectral line broadening and angular blurring of distant sources.     

A hierarchy hypothesis

Why attraction and repulsion between likes should not enjoy equal status in nature is considered. By postulating a hierarchy of isolated systems of finite radii whose associated charges form a geometric series with enormous imaginary common ratio, and by identifying a universe (the content of an infinite cosmos within a Hubble radius of an observer), an electron, and a neutrino as three consecutive members of the hierarchy (in fact the only three observable because of the uncertainty principle), it is possible to treat gravitational and electromagnetic phenomena as perfectly analogous and complementary for the overall structure of the cosmos. An isolated system behaves, from an external viewpoint, as an elementary particle, and from an internal viewpoint, as a universe. Remarkable relationships between physical constants emerge.     

Conformally Flat Spacetimes and Weyl Frames

We discuss the concepts of Weyl and Riemann frames in the context of metric theories of gravity and state the fact that they are completely equivalent as far as geodesic motion is concerned. We apply this result to conformally flat spacetimes and show that a new picture arises when a Riemannian spacetime is taken by means of geometrical gauge transformations into a Minkowskian flat spacetime. We find out that in the Weyl frame gravity is described by a scalar field. We give some examples of how conformally flat spacetime configurations look when viewed from the standpoint of a Weyl frame. We show that in the non-relativistic and weak field regime the Weyl scalar field may be identified with the Newtonian gravitational potential. We suggest an equation for the scalar field by varying the Einstein-Hilbert action restricted to the class of conformally-flat spacetimes. We revisit Einstein and Fokker’s interpretation of Nordstr?m scalar gravity theory and draw an analogy between this approach and the Weyl gauge formalism. We briefly take a look at two-dimensional gravity as viewed in the Weyl frame and address the question of quantizing a conformally flat spacetime by going to the Weyl frame.     

Unified equation of motion of a test charge in electromagnetic and gravitational fields

This work starts by generalizing in a gravitational field the fundamental quantum mechanical commutation relations between the coordinates of a charged test particle and its momentum. Assuming that the components of the momentum of this test charge obey a noncommutative algebra in the presence of an electromagnetic field, it is proved that the commutator can be identified with the electromagnetic field tensor. Using these results, the equation of motion of this charged object in the presence of both the electromagnetic and gravitational fields is derived from their field equations. In this work, the laws of motion of a particle in the electromagnetic and gravitational fields has been unified with the field equations. Although the field equations themselves are not directly unified, this work strongly suggests that the scheme may act as a possible framework for the unification of at least gravitational and electromagnetic interactions.     

Dynamical space and gravitation within a purely geometrical framework: A new approach to gravitation

We state a purely geometrical framework apparently implementing Machian ideas on inertia. Only coupling constants dimensionless in natural units have been introduced in the theory. In anynonvacuum cosmos the field equations describing the gravitational phenomena in cosmological units turn out to be identical to Einstein's equations, with the Einstein gravitational coupling expressed in terms of the parameters defining the cosmological structure. This dependence, however, is not detectable. Indeed, such equations do not need to incorporate the standard Machian requirements (apart from the requirement that they are not conceivable in the total absence of matter) in order to be Machian, since, just on the basis of Mach's principle, one cannot expect to be able to detect Machian effects in Nature by using a system of units based on gravitational phenomena. On the contrary, the equations describing the gravitational field in local atomic units are Machian in the standard sense and, in particular, they incorporate the ideas that the frame has to be fixeddirectly in connection with the observed distribution and motion of matter and that there does not exist any kind of space-time in the total absence of matter. Finally, to reconcile, at least in the weak-field approximation, Einstein's equations (considered as equations describing the gravitational phenomena in local atomic units) with Mach's principle and to be in agreement with cosmological observations, we suggest that our cosmos be identified with a superuniverse model in which the background structure is homogeneous (in space and in time) and isotropic, while our universe is represented by one of the local inhomogeneities of the background. Then we prove that in any region of our universe in which the gravitational field issufficiently weak and smooth the equations, describing the gravitational field in local atomic units, are expected to approximate Einstein's equations all the better, the more the dimensions of our universe are negligible with respect to the dimensions of the background and the background curvature is small. As regards the experimental predictions of the present approach, any prediction for experiments involving only purely gravitational measurements is identical to that of Einstein's theory and the above result also guaranteesa fortiori the agreement with the available experimental data, also asnonpurely gravitational experiments are concerned.This paper appeared as Istituto Matematico L. Tonelli, preprint 78–10 (April 1978) (unpublished).     

Einstein's equations as equations of imbedding and privileged frames

It is shown that Einstein's equations for empty space in a synchronous frame are equations of imbedding of three-dimensional Riemannian spaces in four-dimensional pseudo-Riemmanian spaces with R_ik=0. Choice of the privileged synchronous frame enables one to distinguish the quantities which characterize the gravitational field from those that are due to the frame's being noninertial. In particular, it is shown that the energy of the gravitational field does not contribute to the total matter energy for island systems, which agrees with Einstein's result for a spherical universe.Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 3, pp. 78–82, March, 1976.The author thanks N. V. Mitskevich, and also the participants of the Minvuz gravitation seminar for discussion and helpful remarks.     

On perturbations of solutions of the Einstein-Maxwell equations

By using the expressions for the solutions of the Einstein-Maxwell equations in terms of potentials, valid in the case where the spacetime admits a shear-free geodesic null congruence and the electromagnetic field is aligned to it, we show that a pair of complex potentials generates simultaneous perturbations of the gravitational and the electromagnetic fields. We also show that if the background electromagnetic field is null, then the pair of complex potentials is determined by a pair of coupled, linear, second-order differential equations.     

Gravity as Spacetime Curvature

Einstein's general theory of relativity conceives the phenomena of gravity as manifestations of the curvature of the spacetime manifold in which physical events take place. I sketch the line of thought that led Einstein to this conception, and I briefly discuss proposals by Jeffreys and Feynman for retaining Einstein's gravitational field equations while discarding their purportedly geometrical meaning.