Electromagnetic waves around dilatonic stars and naked singularities

We study the propagation of classical electromagnetic waves on the simplest four-dimensional spherically symmetric metric with a dilaton background field. Solutions to the relevant equations are obtained perturbatively in a parameter which measures the strength of the dilaton field (hence parameterizes the departure from Schwarzschild geometry). The loss of energy from outgoing modes is estimated as a back-scattering process against the dilaton background, which would affect the luminosity of stars with a dilaton field. The radiation emitted by a freely falling point-like source on such a background is also studied by analytical and numerical methods.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur

Bootstrapping Newton Gravity

A non-linear equation obtained by adding gravitational self-interaction terms to the Poisson equation for Newtonian gravity is here employed in order to analyse a static spherically sym- metric homogeneous compact source of given proper mass and radius and the outer vacuum. The main feature of this picture is that, although the freedom of shifting the potential by an ar- bitrary constant is of course lost, the solutions remain qualitatively very close to the Newtonian behaviour. We also notice that the negative gravitational potential energy is smaller than the proper mass for sources with small compactness, but for sources that should form black holes according to General Relativity, the gravitational potential energy becomes of the same order of magnitude of the proper mass, or even larger. Moreover, the pressure overcomes the energy density for large values of the compactness, but it remains finite for finite compactness, hence there exists no Buchdahl limit. This classical description is meant to serve as the starting point for investigating quantum features of (near) black hole configurations within the corpuscular picture of gravity in future developments.Comment: 23 pages, 20 plots. New section and appendix about stability and the pressure clarify comparison with GR. Conclusions rewritten to make motivations cleare

The Poincare' coset models ISO(d-1,1)/R^n and T-duality

We generalize a family of Lagrangians with values in the Poincar\'e group ISO(d-1,1), which contain the description of spinning strings in flat (d-1)+1 dimensions, by including symmetric terms in the world-sheet coordinates. Then, by promoting a subgroup H=R^n, n less than or equal to d, which acts invariantly from the left on the element of ISO(d-1,1), to a gauge symmetry of the action, we obtain a family of sigma-models. They describe bosonic strings moving in (generally) curved, and in some cases degenerate, space-times with an axion field. Further, the space-times of the effective theory admit in general T-dual geometries. We give explicit results for two non degenerate cases.Comment: LaTeX, 24 pages, no figure

Brane-world black holes and the scale of gravity

A particle in four dimensions should behave like a classical black hole if the horizon radius is larger than the Compton wavelength or, equivalently, if its degeneracy (measured by entropy in units of the Planck scale) is large. For spherically symmetric black holes in 4 + d dimensions, both arguments again lead to a mass threshold MC and degeneracy scale Mdeg of the order of the fundamental scale of gravity MG. In the brane-world, deviations from the Schwarzschild metric induced by bulk effects alter the horizon radius and effective four-dimensional Euclidean action in such a way that MC \simeq Mdeg might be either larger or smaller than MG. This opens up the possibility that black holes exist with a mass smaller than MG and might be produced at the LHC even if M>10 TeV, whereas effects due to bulk graviton exchanges remain undetectable because suppressed by inverse powers of MG. Conversely, even if black holes are not found at the LHC, it is still possible that MC>MG and MG \simeq 1TeV.Comment: 4 pages, no figur

Exploring the bulk of tidal charged micro-black holes

We study the bulk corresponding to tidal charged brane-world black holes. We employ a propagating algorithm which makes use of the three-dimensional multipole expansion and analytically yields the metric elements as functions of the five-dimensional coordinates and of the ADM mass, tidal charge and brane tension. Since the projected brane equations cannot determine how the charge depends on the mass, our main purpose is to select the combinations of these parameters for which black holes of microscopic size possess a regular bulk. Our results could in particular be relevant for a better understanding of TeV-scale black holes.Comment: Latex, 15 pages, 1 table, 5 figures; Section 3.2 extended, typos corrected, no change in conclusion

Theoretical survey of tidal-charged black holes at the LHC

We analyse a family of brane-world black holes which solve the effective four-dimensional Einstein equations for a wide range of parameters related to the unknown bulk/brane physics. We first constrain the parameters using known experimental bounds and, for the allowed cases, perform a numerical analysis of their time evolution, which includes accretion through the Earth. The study is aimed at predicting the typical behavior one can expect if such black holes were produced at the LHC. Most notably, we find that, under no circumstances, would the black holes reach the (hazardous) regime of Bondi accretion. Nonetheless, the possibility remains that black holes live long enough to escape from the accelerator (and even from the Earth's gravitational field) and result in missing energy from the detectors.Comment: RevTeX4, 12 pages, 4 figures, 5 tables, minor changes to match the accepted version in JHE

e-EVN monitoring of M87

M87 is a privileged laboratory for a detailed study of the properties of jets, owing to its proximity (D=16.7 Mpc, 1 mas = 0.080 pc), its massive black hole (~6.0 x 10^9M) and its conspicuous emission at radio wavelengths and above. We started on November 2009 a monitoring program with the e-EVN at 5 GHz, in correspondence of the season of Very High Energy (VHE) observations. Indeed, two episodes of VHE activity have been reported in February and April 2010. We present here the main results of these multi-epoch observations: the inner jet and HST-1 are both detected and resolved in our datasets. We study the apparent velocity of HST-1, which seems to be increasing since 2005, and the flux density variability in the inner jet. All in all, the radio counterpart to this year’s VHE event seems to be different from the ones in 2005 and 2008, opening new scenario for the radio-high energy connection

Holography and trace anomaly: what is the fate of (brane-world) black holes?

The holographic principle relates (classical) gravitational waves in the bulk to quantum fluctuations and the Weyl anomaly of a conformal field theory on the boundary (the brane). One can thus argue that linear perturbations in the bulk of static black holes located on the brane be related to the Hawking flux and that (brane-world) black holes are therefore unstable. We try to gain some information on such instability from established knowledge of the Hawking radiation on the brane. In this context, the well-known trace anomaly is used as a measure of both the validity of the holographic picture and of the instability for several proposed static brane metrics. In light of the above analysis, we finally consider a time-dependent metric as the (approximate) representation of the late stage of evaporating black holes which is characterized by decreasing Hawking temperature, in qualitative agreement with what is required by energy conservation.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, a few comments and references added, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Self-adaptive robot training of stroke survivors for continuous tracking movements

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Although robot therapy is progressively becoming an accepted method of treatment for stroke survivors, few studies have investigated how to adapt the robot/subject interaction forces in an automatic way. The paper is a feasibility study of a novel self-adaptive robot controller to be applied with continuous tracking movements.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The haptic robot Braccio di Ferro is used, in relation with a tracking task. The proposed control architecture is based on three main modules: 1) a force field generator that combines a non linear attractive field and a viscous field; 2) a performance evaluation module; 3) an adaptive controller. The first module operates in a continuous time fashion; the other two modules operate in an intermittent way and are triggered at the end of the current block of trials. The controller progressively decreases the gain of the force field, within a session, but operates in a non monotonic way between sessions: it remembers the minimum gain achieved in a session and propagates it to the next one, which starts with a block whose gain is greater than the previous one. The initial assistance gains are chosen according to a minimal assistance strategy. The scheme can also be applied with closed eyes in order to enhance the role of proprioception in learning and control.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The preliminary results with a small group of patients (10 chronic hemiplegic subjects) show that the scheme is robust and promotes a statistically significant improvement in performance indicators as well as a recalibration of the visual and proprioceptive channels. The results confirm that the minimally assistive, self-adaptive strategy is well tolerated by severely impaired subjects and is beneficial also for less severe patients.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The experiments provide detailed information about the stability and robustness of the adaptive controller of robot assistance that could be quite relevant for the design of future large scale controlled clinical trials. Moreover, the study suggests that including continuous movement in the repertoire of training is acceptable also by rather severely impaired subjects and confirms the stabilizing effect of alternating vision/no vision trials already found in previous studies.</p