Shielding of Space Vehicles by Magnetic Fields

Spacecraft shielding by magnetic field

Gravitating Fluxbranes

We consider the effect that gravity has when one tries to set up a constant background form field. We find that in analogy with the Melvin solution, where magnetic field lines self-gravitate to form a flux-tube, the self-gravity of the form field creates fluxbranes. Several exact solutions are found corresponding to different transverse spaces and world-volumes, a dilaton coupling is also considered.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure

The Decay of Magnetic Fields in Kaluza-Klein Theory

Magnetic fields in five-dimensional Kaluza-Klein theory compactified on a circle correspond to ``twisted'' identifications of five dimensional Minkowski space. We show that a five dimensional generalisation of the Kerr solution can be analytically continued to construct an instanton that gives rise to two possible decay modes of a magnetic field. One decay mode is the generalisation of the ``bubble decay" of the Kaluza-Klein vacuum described by Witten. The other decay mode, rarer for weak fields, corresponds in four dimensions to the creation of monopole-anti-monopole pairs. An instanton for the latter process is already known and is given by the analytic continuation of the \KK\ Ernst metric, which we show is identical to the five dimensional Kerr solution. We use this fact to illuminate further properties of the decay process. It appears that fundamental fermions can eliminate the bubble decay of the magnetic field, while allowing the pair production of Kaluza-Klein monopoles.Comment: 25 pages, one figure. The discussion of fermions has been revised: We show how fundamental fermions can eliminate the bubble-type instability but still allow pair creation of monopole

Nucleating Black Holes via Non-Orientable Instantons

We extend the analysis of black hole pair creation to include non- orientable instantons. We classify these instantons in terms of their fundamental symmetries and orientations. Many of these instantons admit the pin structure which corresponds to the fermions actually observed in nature, and so the natural objection that these manifolds do not admit spin structure may not be relevant. Furthermore, we analyse the thermodynamical properties of non-orientable black holes and find that in the non-extreme case, there are interesting modifications of the usual formulae for temperature and entropy.Comment: 27 pages LaTeX, minor typos are correcte

Two loop and all loop finite 4-metrics

In pure Einstein theory, Ricci flat Lorentzian 4-metrics of Petrov types III or N have vanishing counter terms up to and including two loops. Moreover for pp-waves and type-N spacetimes of Kundt's class which admit a non-twisting, non expanding, null congruence all possible invariants formed from the Weyl tensor and its covariant derivatives vanish. Thus these Lorentzian metrics suffer no quantum corrections to all loop orders. By contrast for complete non-singular Riemannian metrics the two loop counter term vanishes only if the metric is flat.Comment: 4 pages Latex file, no figure

Charged Dilaton Black Holes with a Cosmological Constant

The properties of static spherically symmetric black holes, which are either electrically or magnetically charged, and which are coupled to the dilaton in the presence of a cosmological constant, are considered. It is shown that such solutions do not exist if the cosmological constant is positive (in arbitrary spacetime dimension >= 4). However, asymptotically anti-de Sitter black hole solutions with a single horizon do exist if the cosmological constant is negative. These solutions are studied numerically in four dimensions and the thermodynamic properties of the solutions are derived. The extreme solutions are found to have zero entropy and infinite temperature for all non-zero values of the dilaton coupling constant.Comment: 12 pages, epsf, phyzzx, 4 in-text figures incl. (minor typos fixed, 1 reference added

Multi-black holes and instantons in effective string theory

The effective action for string theory which takes into account non-minimal coupling of moduli admits multi-black hole solutions. The euclidean continuation of these solutions can be interpreted as an instanton mediating the splitting and recombination of the throat of extremal magnetically charged black holes.Comment: 10 pages, plain Te

Dynamic and Thermodynamic Stability and Negative Modes in Schwarzschild-Anti-de Sitter

The thermodynamic properties of Schwarzschild-anti-de Sitter black holes confined within finite isothermal cavities are examined. In contrast to the Schwarzschild case, the infinite cavity limit may be taken which, if suitably stated, remains double valued. This allows the correspondence between non-existence of negative modes for classical solutions and local thermodynamic stability of the equilibrium configuration of such solutions to be shown in a well defined manner. This is not possible in the asymptotically flat case. Furthermore, the non-existence of negative modes for the larger black hole solution in Schwarzschild-anti-de Sitter provides strong evidence in favour of the recent positive energy conjecture by Horowitz and Myers.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, LaTe

Particle Production and Positive Energy Theorems for Charged Black Holes in deSitter

We study quantum mechanical and classical stability properties of Reissner-Nordstrom deSitter spacetimes, which describe black holes with mass $M$ and charge $Q$ in a background with cosmological constant $\Lambda \ge 0$. There are two sources of particle production in these spacetimes; the black hole horizon and the cosmological horizon. A scattering calculation is done to compute the Hawking radiation in these spacetimes. We find that the flux from the black hole horizon equals the flux from the cosmological horizon, if and only if $|Q|=M$, indicating that this is a state of thermodynamic equilibrium. The spectrum, however, is not thermal. We also show that spacetimes containing a number of charge equal to mass black holes with $\Lambda \ge 0$, have supercovariantly constant spinors, suggesting that they may be minimum energy states in a positive energy construction. As a first step in this direction, we present a positive energy construction for asymptotically deSitter spacetimes with vanishing charge. Because the construction depends only on a spatial slice, our result also holds for spacetimes which are asymptotically Robertson-Walker.Comment: 11 pages (1 figure not included), UMHEP-39

Pair Creation of Black Holes by Domain Walls

In this paper we study the production of pairs of neutral and charged black holes by domain walls, finding classical solutions and calculating their classical actions. We find that neutral black holes whose creation is mediated by Euclidean instantons must be produced mutually at rest with respect to one another, but for charged black holes a new type of instanton is possible in which after formation the two black holes accelerate away from one another. These new types of instantons are not possible in Einstein-Maxwell theory with a cosmological constant. We also find that the creation of non-orientable black hole solutions can be mediated by Euclidean instantons and that in addition if one is prepared to consider entirely Lorentzian no-boundary type contributions to the path integral then mutually accelerating pairs may be created even in the neutral case. Finally we consider the production of Kaluza-Klein monopoles both by a standard cosmological term and in the presence of a domain wall. We find that compactification is accompanied by the production of pairs of Kaluza-Klein monopoles.Comment: 22 pages (REVTeX with AMS Symbols) with 5 postscript figures attached in a single uuencoded, g-zipped, tar file at end of tex fil