Interior of Distorted Black Holes

We study the interior of distorted static axisymmetric black holes. We obtain a general interior solution and study its asymptotics both near the horizon and singularity. As a special example, we apply the obtained results to the case of the so-called `caged' black holes.Comment: 12 pages, 16 figure

Massless and massive graviton spectra in anisotropic dilatonic braneworld cosmologies

We consider a braneworld model in which an anisotropic brane is embedded in a dilatonic background. We solve the background solutions and study the behavior of the perturbations when the universe evolves from an inflationary Kasner phase to a Minkowski phase. We calculate the massless mode spectrum, and find that it does not differ from what expected in standard four-dimensional cosmological models. We then evaluate the spectrum of both light (ultrarelativistic) and heavy (nonrelativistic) massive modes, and find that, at high energies, there can be a strong enhancement of the Kaluza-Klein spectral amplitude, which can become dominant in the total spectrum. The presence of the dilaton, on the contrary, decrease the relative importance of the massive modes.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, Typos correction

Swift J0525.6+2416 and IGR J04571+4527: two new hard X-ray selected magnetic cataclysmic variables identified with XMM-Newton

IGR J04571+4527 and Swift J0525.6+2416 are two hard X-ray sources detected in the Swift/BAT and INTEGRAL/IBIS surveys. They were proposed to be magnetic cataclysmic variables of the Intermediate Polar (IP) type, based on optical spectroscopy. IGR J04571+4527 also showed a 1218 s optical periodicity, suggestive of the rotational period of a white dwarf, further pointing towards an IP classification. We here present detailed X-ray (0.3-10 keV) timing and spectral analysis performed with XMM-Newton, complemented with hard X-ray coverage (15-70 keV) from Swift/BAT. These are the first high signal to noise observations in the soft X-ray domain for both sources, allowing us to identify the white dwarf X-ray spin period of Swift J0525.6+2416 (226.28 s), and IGR J04571+4527 (1222.6 s). A model consisting of multi-temperature optically thin emission with complex absorption adequately fits the broad-band spectrum of both sources. We estimate a white dwarf mass of about 1.1 and 1.0 solar masses for IGR J04571+4527 and Swift J0525.6+2416, respectively. The above characteristics allow us to unambiguously classify both sources as IPs, confirming the high incidence of this subclass among hard X-ray emitting Cataclysmic Variables.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA

A New Study of the Transition to Uniform Nuclear Matter in Neutron Stars and Supernovae

A comprehensive microscopic study of the properties of bulk matter at densities just below nuclear saturation $\rho_s = 2.5 \sim 10^{14}$ g cm$^{-3}$, zero and finite temperature and high neutron fraction, is outlined, and preliminary results presented. Such matter is expected to exist in the inner crust of neutron stars and during the core collapse of massive stars with $M \gtrsim 8M_{\odot}Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Participant Contribution at the ``Dense Matter in Heavy Ion Collisions and Astrophysics" Summer School, JINR, Dubna, Aug. 21 - Sept. 1, 2006. To be published in PEPAN letter

Gravitational collapse of homogeneous scalar fields

Conditions under which gravity coupled to self interacting scalar field determines singularity formation are found and discussed. It is shown that, under a suitable matching with an external space, the boundary, if collapses completely, may give rise to a naked singularity. Issues related to the strength of the singularity are discussed.Comment: LaTeX2e; revised versio

A note on dilaton gravity with non-smooth potentials

Recent interest in brane world models motivates the investigation of generic first order dilaton gravity actions, with potentials having some non-smoothness. We consider two different types of \delta-like contributions in the action and analyse their effects on the solutions. Furthermore a second source of non-smoothness arises due to the remaining ambiguities in the solutions in the separated smooth patches, after fixing all other constants by matching and asymptotic conditions. If moreover staticity is assumed, we explicitly construct exact solutions. With the methods described, for example models with point like sources or brane world models (where the second source of non-smoothness becomes crucial), can now be treated as non-smooth dilaton gravity theories.Comment: 10 pages, 1 table; two new references, some typos corrected, Dedicated to Wolfgang Kummer at the occasion of his Emeritierun

Semi-transparent brane-worlds

We study the evolution of a closed Friedmann brane perturbed by the Hawking radiation escaping a bulk black hole. The semi-transparent brane absorbes some of the infalling radiation, the rest being transmitted across the brane to the other bulk region. We characterize the cosmological evolution in terms of the transmission rate $\epsilon$. For small values of $\epsilon$ a critical-like behaviour could be observed, when the acceleration due to radiation pressure and the deceleration induced by the increasing self-gravity of the brane roughly compensate each other, and cosmological evolution is approximately the same as without radiation. Lighter (heavier) branes than those with the critical energy density will recollapse slower (faster). This feature is obstructed at high values of $\epsilon$, where the overall effect of the radiation is to speed-up the recollapse. We determine the maximal value of the transmission rate for which the critical-like behaviour is observed. We also study the effect of transmission on the evolution of different source terms of the Friedmann equation. We conclude that among all semi-transparent branes the slowest recollapse occurs for light branes with total absorption.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Vacuum Polarization of a Massless Scalar Field in the Background of a Global Monopole with Finite Core

In this paper we analyze the vacuum polarization effects of a massless scalar field in the background of a global monopole considering a inner structure to it. Specifically we investigate the effect of its structure on the vacuum expectation value of the square of the field operator, , admitting a non-minimal coupling between the field with the geometry: $\xi {\cal{R}}\hat{\Phi}^2$. Also we calculate the corrections on the vacuum expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor, , due to the inner structure of the monopole. In order to develop these analysis, we calculate the Euclidean Green function associated with the system for points in the region outside the core. As we shall see, for specific value of the coupling parameter $\xi$, the corrections caused by the inner structure of the monopole can provide relevant contributions on these vacuum polarizations.Comment: Accepted for publication in Classical and Quantum Gravity. Added references. 22 pages, 1 figur