11,343 research outputs found
Light-like Signals in General relativity and Cosmology
The modelling of light-like signals in General Relativity taking the form of
impulsive gravitational waves and light-like shells of matter is examined.
Systematic deductions from the Bianchi identities are made. These are based
upon Penrose's hierarchical classification of the geometry induced on the null
hypersurface history of the surface by its imbedding in the space-times to the
future and to the past of it. The signals are not confined to propagate in a
vacuum and thus their interaction with matter (a burst of radiation propagating
through a cosmic fluid, for example) is also studied. Results are accompanied
by illustrative examples using cosmological models, vacuum space-times, the de
sitter univers and Minkowskian space-time.Comment: 21 pages, latex, no figure
Gravitational wave generation from bubble collisions in first-order phase transitions: an analytic approach
Gravitational wave production from bubble collisions was calculated in the
early nineties using numerical simulations. In this paper, we present an
alternative analytic estimate, relying on a different treatment of
stochasticity. In our approach, we provide a model for the bubble velocity
power spectrum, suitable for both detonations and deflagrations. From this, we
derive the anisotropic stress and analytically solve the gravitational wave
equation. We provide analytical formulae for the peak frequency and the shape
of the spectrum which we compare with numerical estimates. In contrast to the
previous analysis, we do not work in the envelope approximation. This paper
focuses on a particular source of gravitational waves from phase transitions.
In a companion article, we will add together the different sources of
gravitational wave signals from phase transitions: bubble collisions,
turbulence and magnetic fields and discuss the prospects for probing the
electroweak phase transition at LISA.Comment: 48 pages, 14 figures. v2 (PRD version): calculation refined; plots
redone starting from Fig. 4. Factor 2 in GW energy spectrum corrected. Main
conclusions unchanged. v3: Note added at the end of paper to comment on the
new results of 0901.166
Improved limits on short-wavelength gravitational waves from the cosmic microwave background
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is affected by the total radiation
density around the time of decoupling. At that epoch, neutrinos comprised a
significant fraction of the radiative energy, but there could also be a
contribution from primordial gravitational waves with frequencies greater than
~ 10^-15 Hz. If this cosmological gravitational wave background (CGWB) were
produced under adiabatic initial conditions, its effects on the CMB and matter
power spectrum would mimic massless non-interacting neutrinos. However, with
homogenous initial conditions, as one might expect from certain models of
inflation, pre big-bang models, phase transitions and other scenarios, the
effect on the CMB would be distinct. We present updated observational bounds
for both initial conditions using the latest CMB data at small scales from the
South Pole Telescope (SPT) in combination with Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy
Probe (WMAP), current measurements of the baryon acoustic oscillations, and the
Hubble parameter. With the inclusion of the data from SPT the adiabatic bound
on the CGWB density is improved by a factor of 1.7 to 10^6 Omega_gw < 8.7 at
the 95% confidence level (C.L.), with weak evidence in favor of an additional
radiation component consistent with previous analyses. The constraint can be
converted into an upper limit on the tension of horizon-sized cosmic strings
that could generate this gravitational wave component, with Gmu < 2 10^-7 at
95% C.L., for string tension Gmu. The homogeneous bound improves by a factor of
3.5 to 10^6 Omega_gw < 1.0 at 95% C.L., with no evidence for such a component
from current data.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Wave and Particle Scattering Properties of High Speed Black Holes
The light-like limit of the Kerr gravitational field relative to a distant
observer moving rectilinearly in an arbitrary direction is an impulsive plane
gravitational wave with a singular point on its wave front. By colliding
particles with this wave we show that they have the same focussing properties
as high speed particles scattered by the original black hole. By colliding
photons with the gravitational wave we show that there is a circular disk,
centered on the singular point on the wave front, having the property that
photons colliding with the wave within this disk are reflected back and travel
with the wave. This result is approximate in the sense that there are observers
who can see a dim (as opposed to opaque) circular disk on their sky. By
colliding plane electromagnetic waves with the gravitational wave we show that
the reflected electromagnetic waves are the high frequency waves.Comment: Latex file, 22 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in Classical
and Quantum Gravit
Space missions to detect the cosmic gravitational-wave background
It is thought that a stochastic background of gravitational waves was
produced during the formation of the universe. A great deal could be learned by
measuring this Cosmic Gravitational-wave Background (CGB), but detecting the
CGB presents a significant technological challenge. The signal strength is
expected to be extremely weak, and there will be competition from unresolved
astrophysical foregrounds such as white dwarf binaries. Our goal is to identify
the most promising approach to detect the CGB. We study the sensitivities that
can be reached using both individual, and cross-correlated pairs of space based
interferometers. Our main result is a general, coordinate free formalism for
calculating the detector response that applies to arbitrary detector
configurations. We use this general formalism to identify some promising
designs for a GrAvitational Background Interferometer (GABI) mission. Our
conclusion is that detecting the CGB is not out of reach.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, IOP style, References Adde
Detecting Vanishing Dimensions Via Primordial Gravitational Wave Astronomy
Lower-dimensionality at higher energies has manifold theoretical advantages
as recently pointed out. Moreover, it appears that experimental evidence may
already exists for it - a statistically significant planar alignment of events
with energies higher than TeV has been observed in some earlier cosmic ray
experiments. We propose a robust and independent test for this new paradigm.
Since (2+1)-dimensional spacetimes have no gravitational degrees of freedom,
gravity waves cannot be produced in that epoch. This places a universal maximum
frequency at which primordial waves can propagate, marked by the transition
between dimensions. We show that this cut-off frequency may be accessible to
future gravitational wave detectors such as LISA.Comment: Somewhat expanded version with discussions that could not fit into
the PRL version; references adde
Recommended from our members
Improved rain rate and drop size retrievals from airborne Doppler radar
Satellite remote sensing of rain is important for quantifying the hydrological cycle, atmospheric energy budget, and cloud and precipitation processes; however, radar retrievals of rain rate are sensitive to assumptions about the raindrop size distribution. The upcoming EarthCARE satellite will feature a 94âŻGHz Doppler radar alongside lidar and radiometer instruments, presenting opportunities for enhanced retrievals of the raindrop size distribution. We demonstrate the capability to retrieve rain rate as a function of drop size and drop number concentration from airborne 94âŻGHz Doppler radar measurements using CAPTIVATE, the variational retrieval algorithm developed for EarthCARE. For a range of rain regimes observed during the Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling field campaign, we explore the contributions of mean Doppler velocity and path-integrated attenuation (PIA) measurements to the retrieval of rain rate, and the retrievals are evaluated against independent measurements from an independent 9.6âŻGHz Doppler radar. The retrieved drop number concentrations vary over 5 orders of magnitude between very light rain from melting ice and warm rain from liquid clouds. In light rain conditions mean Doppler velocity facilitates estimates of rain rate without PIA, suggesting the possibility of EarthCARE rain rate estimates over land; in moderate warm rain, drop number concentration can be retrieved without mean Doppler velocity, with possible applications to CloudSat
Gravitational Waves from Mesoscopic Dynamics of the Extra Dimensions
Recent models which describe our world as a brane embedded in a higher
dimensional space introduce new geometrical degrees of freedom: the shape
and/or size of the extra dimensions, and the position of the brane. These modes
can be coherently excited by symmetry breaking in the early universe even on
``mesoscopic'' scales as large as 1 mm, leading to detectable gravitational
radiation. Two sources are described: relativistic turbulence caused by a
first-order transition of a radion potential, and Kibble excitation of
Nambu-Goldstone modes of brane displacement. Characteristic scales and spectral
properties are estimated and the prospects for observation by LISA are
discussed. Extra dimensions with scale between 10 \AA and 1 mm, which enter the
3+1-D era at cosmic temperatures between 1 and 1000 TeV, produce backgrounds
with energy peaked at observed frequencies in the LISA band, between
and Hz. The background is detectable above instrument and
astrophysical foregrounds if initial metric perturbations are excited to a
fractional amplitude of or more, a likely outcome for the
Nambu-Goldstone excitations.Comment: Latex, 5 pages, plus one figure, final version to appear in Phys.
Rev. Let
Detecting the Earliest Galaxies Through Two New Sources of 21cm Fluctuations
The first galaxies that formed at a redshift ~20-30 emitted continuum photons
with energies between the Lyman-alpha and Lyman limit wavelengths of hydrogen,
to which the neutral universe was transparent except at the Lyman-series
resonances. As these photons redshifted or scattered into the Lyman-alpha
resonance they coupled the spin temperature of the 21cm transition of hydrogen
to the gas temperature, allowing it to deviate from the microwave background
temperature. We show that the fluctuations in the radiation emitted by the
first galaxies produced strong fluctuations in the 21cm flux before the
Lyman-alpha coupling became saturated. The fluctuations were caused by biased
inhomogeneities in the density of galaxies, along with Poisson fluctuations in
the number of galaxies. Observing the power-spectra of these two sources would
probe the number density of the earliest galaxies and the typical mass of their
host dark matter halos. The enhanced amplitude of the 21cm fluctuations from
the era of Lyman-alpha coupling improves considerably the practical prospects
for their detection.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, ApJ, published. Normalization fixed in top
panels of Figures 4-
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