Gravitational Lensing as a Mechanism For Effective Cloaking

In light of the surge in popularity of electromagnetic cloaking devices, we consider whether it is possible to use gravitational lensing to cloak a volume of spacetime. A metric for such a spacetime geometry is presented, and its geometric and physical implications are explained.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

Gravitational collapse of quantum matter

We describe a class of exactly soluble models for gravitational collapse in spherical symmetry obtained by patching dynamical spherically symmetric exterior spacetimes with cosmological interior spacetimes. These are generalizations of the Oppenheimer-Snyder type models to include classical and quantum scalar fields as sources for the interior metric, and null fluids with pressure as sources for the exterior metric. In addition to dynamical exteriors, the models exhibit other novel features such as evaporating horizons, and singularity avoidance without quantum gravity.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, revtex 2co

Traversable acausal retrograde domains in spacetime

In this paper we present geometry which has been designed to fit a layperson's description of a 'time machine'. It is a box which allows those within it to travel backwards and forwards through time and space, as interpreted by an external observer. Timelike observers travel within the interior of a 'bubble' of geometry which moves along a circular, acausal trajectory through spacetime. If certain timelike observers inside the bubble maintain a persistent acceleration, their worldlines will close.Our analysis includes a description of the causal structure of our spacetime, as well as a discussion of its physicality. The inclusion of such a bubble in a spacetime will render the background spacetime non-orientable, generating additional consistency constraints for formulations of the initial value problem. The spacetime geometry is geodesically incomplete, contains naked singularities, and requires exotic matter

Tomimatsu-Sato geometries, holography and quantum gravity

We analyze the $\delta=2$ Tomimatsu-Sato spacetime in the context of the proposed Kerr/CFT correspondence. This 4-dimensional vacuum spacetime is asymptotically flat and has a well-defined ADM mass and angular momentum, but also involves several exotic features including a naked ring singularity, and two disjoint Killing horizons separated by a region with closed timelike curves and a rod-like conical singularity. We demonstrate that the near horizon geometry belongs to a general class of Ricci-flat metrics with $SL(2,\mathbb{R})\times U(1)$ symmetry that includes both the extremal Kerr and extremal Kerr-bolt geometries. We calculate the central charge and temperature for the CFT dual to this spacetime and confirm the Cardy formula reproduces the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. We find that all of the basic parameters of the dual CFT are most naturally expressed in terms of charges defined intrinsically on the horizon, which are distinct from the ADM charges in this geometry.Comment: 20+1 pages, 3 figures, changed title, expanded discussion, matches version published in CQ