Static plane symmetric relativistic fluids and empty repelling singular boundaries

We present a detailed analysis of the general exact solution of Einstein's equation corresponding to a static and plane symmetric distribution of matter with density proportional to pressure. We study the geodesics in it and we show that this simple spacetime exhibits very curious properties. In particular, it has a free of matter repelling singular boundary and all geodesics bounce off it.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in Classical and Quantum Gravit

Infinite slabs and other weird plane symmetric space-times with constant positive density

We present the exact solution of Einstein's equation corresponding to a static and plane symmetric distribution of matter with constant positive density located below $z=0$. This solution depends essentially on two constants: the density $\rho$ and a parameter $\kappa$. We show that this space-time finishes down below at an inner singularity at finite depth. We match this solution to the vacuum one and compute the external gravitational field in terms of slab's parameters. Depending on the value of $\kappa$, these slabs can be attractive, repulsive or neutral. In the first case, the space-time also finishes up above at another singularity. In the other cases, they turn out to be semi-infinite and asymptotically flat when $z\to\infty$. We also find solutions consisting of joining an attractive slab and a repulsive one, and two neutral ones. We also discuss how to assemble a "gravitational capacitor" by inserting a slice of vacuum between two such slabs.Comment: 8 page

An alternative well-posedness property and static spacetimes with naked singularities

In the first part of this paper, we show that the Cauchy problem for wave propagation in some static spacetimes presenting a singular time-like boundary is well posed, if we only demand the waves to have finite energy, although no boundary condition is required. This feature does not come from essential self-adjointness, which is false in these cases, but from a different phenomenon that we call the alternative well-posedness property, whose origin is due to the degeneracy of the metric components near the boundary. Beyond these examples, in the second part, we characterize the type of degeneracy which leads to this phenomenon.Comment: 34 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in Class. Quantum Gra

On gauge invariant regularization of fermion currents

We compare Schwinger and complex powers methods to construct regularized fermion currents. We show that although both of them are gauge invariant they not always yield the same result.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur

The electromagnetic energy-momentum tensor

We clarify the relation between canonical and metric energy-momentum tensors. In particular, we show that a natural definition arises from Noether's Theorem which directly leads to a symmetric and gauge invariant tensor for electromagnetic field theories on an arbitrary space-time of any dimension

On well-posedness of the Cauchy problem for the wave equation in static spherically symmetric spacetimes

We give simple conditions implying the well-posedness of the Cauchy problem for the propagation of classical scalar fields in general (n+2)-dimensional static and spherically symmetric spacetimes. They are related to properties of the underlying spatial part of the wave operator, one of which being the standard essentially self-adjointness. However, in many examples the spatial part of the wave operator turns out to be not essentially selfadjoint, but it does satisfy a weaker property that we call here quasi essentially self-adjointness, which is enough to ensure the desired well-posedness. This is why we also characterize this second property. We state abstract results, then general results for a class of operators encompassing many examples in the literature, and we finish with the explicit analysis of some of them.Comment: 36 pages. Final version to appear in Classical and Quantum Gravit

Dirac Operator on a disk with global boundary conditions

We compute the functional determinant for a Dirac operator in the presence of an Abelian gauge field on a bidimensional disk, under global boundary conditions of the type introduced by Atiyah-Patodi-Singer. We also discuss the connection between our result and the index theorem.Comment: RevTeX, 11 pages. References adde

On the energy-momentum tensor

We clarify the relation among canonical, metric and Belinfante's energy-momentum tensors for general tensor field theories. For any tensor field T, we define a new tensor field \til {\bm T}, in terms of which the Belinfante tensor is readily computed. We show that the latter is the one that arises naturally from Noether Theorem for an arbitrary spacetime and it coincides on-shell with the metric one.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur