Test bodies and naked singularities: is the self-force the cosmic censor?

Jacobson and Sotiriou showed that rotating black holes could be spun up past the extremal limit by the capture of nonspinning test bodies, if one neglects radiative and self-force effects. This would represent a violation of the cosmic censorship conjecture in four-dimensional, asymptotically flat spacetimes. We show that for some of the trajectories giving rise to naked singularities, radiative effects can be neglected. However, for these orbits the conservative self-force is important, and seems to have the right sign to prevent the formation of naked singularities.     

Bogomol'nyi bounds for cosmic strings

We establish Bogomol'nyi inequalities for the deficit angle of some cylindrically symmetric asymptotically local flat (CALF) spacetimes containing cosmic strings. These results prove the stability against arbitrary cylindrical deformations of those configurations which saturate the bound. Such configuration satisfy first order equations which can, in some cases, be solved exactly.     

Black holes and the weak cosmic censorship

A theory of black holes is developed under the assumption of the weak cosmic censorship. It includes Hawking's theory of black holes in the future asymptotically predictable spacetimes as a special case but it also applies to the cosmological situations including models with nonzero cosmological constant of both signs.     

Singularities,trapped sets,and cosmic censorship in asymptotically flat space-times

We show that space-time is future asymptotically predictable from a regular partial Cauchy provided that singularities are causally preceded by trapped sets. Future asymptotic predictability is a formal statement of cosmic censorship in asymptotically flat space-times. A regular partial Cauchy surface means that singularities in gravitational collapse can arise only from regular initial data. Our result confirms a supposition by Hawking that singularities forced by singularity theorems cannot be naked.     

The global existence problem and cosmic censorship in general relativity

We formulate two global existence conjectures for the Einstein equations and discuss their relevance to the cosmic censorship conjecture. We argue that the reformulation of the cosmic censorship conjecture as a global existence problem renders it more amenable to direct analytical attack. To demonstrate the facilty of this approach we prove the cosmological version of our global existence conjecture for the Gowdy spacetimes onT ³×R.     

Demise of the Cosmic Censor?

Initial data for general relativity may be such that there are trapped surfaces on a spatial initial data surface. Penrose has proposed that if the cosmic censorship hypothesis is true, the ADM mass M of asymptotically flat initial data and the area A of the outermost apparent horizon surface should satisfy the inequality A 16M². Initial data which does not satisfy this inequality may be viewed as providing a counterexample of the cosmic censorship conjecture. We describe initial data that appears to violate this inequality.     

Black holes and the strong cosmic censorship

The theory of black holes developed by Hawking in asymptotically flat space-times is generalized so that black holes in the cosmological situations are included. It is assumed that the strong version of the Penrose cosmic censorship hypothesis holds.Part of a Ph.D. thesis submitted to the Physics Faculty of the Warsaw University.     

Cosmic inflation from broken conformal symmetry

A period of rapidly accelerating expansion is expected in the early Universe implemented by a scalar field slowly rolling down along an asymptotically flat potential preferred by the current data. In this paper, we point out that this picture of the cosmic inflation with an asymptotically flat potential could emerge from the Palatini quadratic gravity by adding the matter field in such a way to break the local gauged conformal symmetry in both kinetic and potential terms.     

A Proof of the Geroch–Horowitz–Penrose Formulation of the Strong Cosmic Censor Conjecture Motivated by Computability Theory

In this paper we present a proof of a mathematical version of the strong cosmic censor conjecture attributed to Geroch–Horowitz and Penrose but formulated explicitly by Wald. The proof is based on the existence of future-inextendible causal curves in causal pasts of events on the future Cauchy horizon in a non-globally hyperbolic space-time. By examining explicit non-globally hyperbolic space-times we find that in case of several physically relevant solutions these future-inextendible curves have in fact infinite length. This way we recognize a close relationship between asymptotically flat or anti-de Sitter, physically relevant extendible space-times and the so-called Malament–Hogarth space-times which play a central role in recent investigations in the theory of “gravitational computers”. This motivates us to exhibit a more sharp, more geometric formulation of the strong cosmic censor conjecture, namely “all physically relevant, asymptotically flat or anti-de Sitter but non-globally hyperbolic space-times are Malament–Hogarth ones”. Our observations may indicate a natural but hidden connection between the strong cosmic censorship scenario and the Church–Turing thesis revealing an unexpected conceptual depth beneath both conjectures.     

Neighborhoods of Cauchy horizons in cosmological spacetimes with one killing field

In this paper we show how to construct an infinite dimensional family of analytic, vacuum spacetimes which each have (i) T³ × R topology, (ii) a smooth, compact Cauchy horizon, and (iii) a single Killing vector field which is spacelike in the globally hyperbolic region, null on the horizon and timelike in the (acausal) extension. The key idea is to use the horizons themselves as initial data surfaces and to prove the local existence of solutions using a version of the Cauchy-Kowalewski theorem. Factoring by the action of analytic, horizon preserving diffeomorphisms we define a “space of extendible vacuum spacetimes” of the given symmetry type and show (modulo certain smoothness estimates which we do not attempt to derive) that this space defines a Lagrangian submanifold of the usual phase space for Einstein's equations. We also study the linear perturbations of a class of the extendible spacetimes and show that the generic such perturbation blows up near the background solution's Cauchy horizon. This result, though limited by the linearity of the approximation, conforms to the usual picture of unstable Cauchy horizons demanded by the strong cosmic censorship conjecture.     

On the Global Visibility of the Singularity in Quasi-Spherical Collapse

We analyze here the issue of local versus global visibility of a singularity that forms in gravitational collapse of a dust cloud, which has important implications for the weak and strong versions of the cosmic censorship hypothesis. We find conditions for when a singularity will be only locally naked, rather than being globally visible, thus preserving the weak censorship hypothesis. The conditions for the formation of a black hole or a naked singularity in the Szekeres quasi-spherical collapse models are worked out. The causal behaviour of the singularity curve is studied by examining the outgoing radial null geodesics, and the final outcome of collapse is related to the nature of the regular initial data specified on an initial hypersurface from which the collapse evolves. An interesting feature that emerges is that the singularity in Szekeres spacetimes can be directionally naked.     

Homothetic and conformal symmetries of solutions to Einstein's equations

We present several results about the nonexistence of solutions of Einstein's equations with homothetic or conformal symmetry. We show that the only spatially compact, globally hyperbolic spacetimes admitting a hypersurface of constant mean extrinsic curvature, and also admitting an infinitesimal proper homothetic symmetry, are everywhere locally flat; this assumes that the matter fields either obey certain energy conditions, or are the Yang-Mills or massless Klein-Gordon fields. We find that the only vacuum solutions admitting an infinitesimal proper conformal symmetry are everywhere locally flat spacetimes and certain plane wave solutions. We show that if the dominant energy condition is assumed, then Minkowski spacetime is the only asymptotically flat solution which has an infinitesimal conformal symmetry that is asymptotic to a dilation. In other words, with the exceptions cited, homothetic or conformal Killing fields are in fact Killing in spatially compact or asymptotically flat spactimes. In the conformal procedure for solving the initial value problem, we show that data with infinitesimal conformal symmetry evolves to a spacetime with full isometry.     

Linear bosonic and fermionic quantum gauge theories on curved spacetimes

We develop a general setting for the quantization of linear bosonic and fermionic field theories subject to local gauge invariance and show how standard examples such as linearised Yang-Mills theory and linearised general relativity fit into this framework. Our construction always leads to a well-defined and gauge-invariant quantum field algebra, the centre and representations of this algebra, however, have to be analysed on a case-by-case basis. We discuss an example of a fermionic gauge field theory where the necessary conditions for the existence of Hilbert space representations are not met on any spacetime. On the other hand, we prove that these conditions are met for the Rarita-Schwinger gauge field in linearised pure $N=1$ supergravity on certain spacetimes, including asymptotically flat spacetimes and classes of spacetimes with compact Cauchy surfaces. We also present an explicit example of a supergravity background on which the Rarita-Schwinger gauge field can not be consistently quantized.     

Validity of thermodynamic laws and weak cosmic censorship for AdS black holes and black holes in a cavity

By throwing a test charged particle into a Reissner-Nordstrom (RN) black hole, we test the validity of the first and second laws of thermodynamics and the weak cosmic censorship conjecture (WCCC) with two types of boundary conditions: the asymptotically anti-de Sitter (AdS) space and a Dirichlet cavity wall placed in an asymptotically flat space. For the RN-AdS black hole, the second law of thermodynamics is satisfied, and the WCCC is violated for both extremal and near-extremal black holes. For the RN black hole in a cavity, the entropy can either increase or decrease depending on the change in the charge, and the WCCC is satisfied/violated for the extremal/near-extremal black hole. Our results indicate that there may be a connection between the black hole thermodynamics and the boundary condition imposed on the black hole.     

Scalar field condensation behaviors around reflecting shells in Anti-de Sitter spacetimes

We study scalar condensations around asymptotically Anti-de Sitter (AdS) regular reflecting shells. We show that the charged scalar field can condense around charged reflecting shells with both Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions. In particular, the radii of the asymptotically AdS hairy shells are discrete, which is similar to cases in asymptotically flat spacetimes. We also provide upper bounds for the radii of the hairy Dirichlet reflecting shells and above the bound, the scalar field cannot condense around the shell.     

Existence and stability of circular orbits in static and axisymmetric spacetimes

The existence and stability of timelike and null circular orbits (COs) in the equatorial plane of general static and axisymmetric (SAS) spacetime are investigated in this work. Using the fixed point approach, we first obtained a necessary and sufficient condition for the non-existence of timelike COs. It is then proven that there will always exist timelike COs at large \(\rho \) in an asymptotically flat SAS spacetime with a positive ADM mass and moreover, these timelike COs are stable. Some other sufficient conditions on the stability of timelike COs are also solved. We then found the necessary and sufficient condition on the existence of null COs. It is generally shown that the existence of timelike COs in SAS spacetime does not imply the existence of null COs, and vice-versa, regardless whether the spacetime is asymptotically flat or the ADM mass is positive or not. These results are then used to show the existence of timelike COs and their stability in an SAS Einstein-Yang-Mills-Dilaton spacetimes whose metric is not completely known. We also used the theorems to deduce the existence of timelike and null COs in some known SAS spacetimes.     

Bondi-Sachs metrics and photon rockets

We study the Bondi-Sachs rockets with nonzero cosmological constant. We observe that the acceleration of the systems arises naturally in the asymptotic symmetries of (anti-) de Sitter spacetimes. Assuming the validity of the concepts of energy and mass previously introduced in asymptotically flat spacetimes, we find that the emission of pure radiation energy balances the loss of the Bondi mass in certain special families of the Bondi-Sachs rockets, so in these there is no gravitational radiation.     

The Coupling of Topology and Inflation in Noncommutative Cosmology

We show that, in a model of modified gravity based on the spectral action functional, there is a nontrivial coupling between cosmic topology and inflation, in the sense that the shape of the possible slow-roll inflation potentials obtained in the model from the nonperturbative form of the spectral action is sensitive not only to the geometry (flat or positively curved) of the universe, but also to the different possible non-simply connected topologies. We show this by explicitly computing the nonperturbative spectral action for some candidate flat cosmic topologies given by Bieberbach manifolds and showing that the resulting inflation potential differs from that of the flat torus by a multiplicative factor, similarly to what happens in the case of the spectral action of the spherical forms in relation to the case of the 3-sphere. We then show that, while the slow-roll parameters differ between the spherical and flat manifolds but do not distinguish different topologies within each class, the power spectra detect the different scalings of the slow-roll potential and therefore distinguish between the various topologies, both in the spherical and in the flat case.     

Holography and entanglement in flat spacetime

We propose a holographic correspondence of the flat spacetime based on the behavior of the entanglement entropy and the correlation functions. The holographic dual theory turns out to be highly nonlocal. We argue that after most part of the space is traced out, the reduced density matrix gives the maximal entropy and the correlation functions become trivial. We present a toy model for this holographic dual using a nonlocal scalar field theory that reproduces the same property of the entanglement entropy. Our conjecture is consistent with the entropy of Schwarzschild black holes in asymptotically flat spacetimes.     

Nonholonomic Black Ring and Solitonic Solutions in Finsler and Extra Dimension Gravity Theories

We study stationary configurations mimicking nonholonomic locally anisotropic black rings (for instance, with ellipsoidal polarizations and/or imbedded into solitonic backgrounds) in three/six dimensional pseudo-Finsler/Riemannian spacetimes. In the asymptotically flat limit, for holonomic configurations, a subclass of such spacetimes contains the set of five dimensional black ring solutions with regular rotating event horizon. For corresponding parameterizations, the metrics and connections define Finsler–Einstein geometries modeled on tangent bundles, or on nonholonomic (pseudo) Riemannian manifolds. In general, there are vacuum nonholonomic gravitational configurations which can not be generated in the limit of zero cosmological constant.