28 research outputs found
Uniformly accelerating black holes in a de Sitter universe
A class of exact solutions of Einstein's equations is analysed which
describes uniformly accelerating charged black holes in an asymptotically de
Sitter universe. This is a generalisation of the C-metric which includes a
cosmological constant. The physical interpretation of the solutions is
facilitated by the introduction of a new coordinate system for de Sitter space
which is adapted to accelerating observers in this background. The solutions
considered reduce to this form of the de Sitter metric when the mass and charge
of the black holes vanish.Comment: 6 pages REVTeX, 3 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. D. Figure 2
correcte
Intersecting 6-branes from new 7-manifolds with G_2 holonomy
We discuss a new family of metrics of 7-manifolds with G_2 holonomy, which
are R^3 bundles over a quaternionic space. The metrics depend on five
parameters and have two Abelian isometries. Certain singularities of the G_2
manifolds are related to fixed points of these isometries; there are two
combinations of Killing vectors that possess co-dimension four fixed points
which yield upon compactification only intersecting D6-branes if one also
identifies two parameters. Two of the remaining parameters are quantized and we
argue that they are related to the number of D6-branes, which appear in three
stacks. We perform explicitly the reduction to the type IIA model.Comment: 25 pages, 1 figure, Latex, small changes and add refs, version
appeared in JHE
Cosmological Plebanski theory
We consider the cosmological symmetry reduction of the Plebanski action as a
toy-model to explore, in this simple framework, some issues related to loop
quantum gravity and spin-foam models. We make the classical analysis of the
model and perform both path integral and canonical quantizations. As for the
full theory, the reduced model admits two types of classical solutions:
topological and gravitational ones. The quantization mixes these two solutions,
which prevents the model to be equivalent to standard quantum cosmology.
Furthermore, the topological solution dominates at the classical limit. We also
study the effect of an Immirzi parameter in the model.Comment: 20 page
Anti-self-dual conformal structures with null Killing vectors from projective structures
Using twistor methods, we explicitly construct all local forms of
four--dimensional real analytic neutral signature anti--self--dual conformal
structures with a null conformal Killing vector. We show that is
foliated by anti-self-dual null surfaces, and the two-dimensional leaf space
inherits a natural projective structure. The twistor space of this projective
structure is the quotient of the twistor space of by the group action
induced by the conformal Killing vector.
We obtain a local classification which branches according to whether or not
the conformal Killing vector is hyper-surface orthogonal in . We give
examples of conformal classes which contain Ricci--flat metrics on compact
complex surfaces and discuss other conformal classes with no Ricci--flat
metrics.Comment: 43 pages, 4 figures. Theorem 2 has been improved: ASD metrics are
given in terms of general projective structures without needing to choose
special representatives of the projective connection. More examples (primary
Kodaira surface, neutral Fefferman structure) have been included. Algebraic
type of the Weyl tensor has been clarified. Final version, to appear in
Commun Math Phy
On the perturbative expansion of a quantum field theory around a topological sector
The idea of treating general relativistic theories in a perturbative
expansion around a topological theory has been recently put forward in the
quantum gravity literature. Here we investigate the viability of this idea, by
applying it to conventional Yang--Mills theory on flat spacetime. We find that
the expansion around the topological theory coincides with the usual expansion
around the abelian theory, though the equivalence is non-trivial. In this
context, the technique appears therefore to be viable, but not to bring
particularly new insights. Some implications for gravity are discussed.Comment: 7 page
Making the hyper--K\"ahler structure of N=2 quantum string manifest
We show that the Lorentz covariant formulation of N=2 string in a curved
space reveals an explicit hyper--K\"ahler structure. Apart from the metric, the
superconformal currents couple to a background two--form. By superconformal
symmetry the latter is constrained to be holomorphic and covariantly constant
and allows one to construct three complex structures obeying a
(pseudo)quaternion algebra.Comment: 8 pages, no figures, PACS: 04.60.Ds; 11.30.Pb, Keywords: N=2 string,
hyper-K\"ahler geometry. Presentation improved, references added. The version
to appear in PR
Darboux coordinates for the Hamiltonian of first order Einstein-Cartan gravity
Based on preliminary analysis of the Hamiltonian formulation of the first
order Einstein-Cartan action (arXiv:0902.0856 [gr-qc] and arXiv:0907.1553
[gr-qc]) we derive the Darboux coordinates, which are a unique and uniform
change of variables preserving equivalence with the original action in all
spacetime dimensions higher than two. Considerable simplification of the
Hamiltonian formulation using the Darboux coordinates, compared with direct
analysis, is explicitly demonstrated. Even an incomplete Hamiltonian analysis
in combination with known symmetries of the Einstein-Cartan action and the
equivalence of Hamiltonian and Lagrangian formulations allows us to
unambiguously conclude that the \textit{unique} \textit{gauge} invariances
generated by the first class constraints of the Einstein-Cartan action and the
corresponding Hamiltonian are \textit{translation and rotation in the tangent
space}. Diffeomorphism invariance, though a manifest invariance of the action,
is not generated by the first class constraints of the theory.Comment: 44 pages, references are added, organization of material is slightly
modified (additional section is introduced), more details of calculation of
the Dirac bracket between translational and rotational constraints are
provide
Nonlinear electrodynamics and CMB polarization
Recently WMAP and BOOMERanG experiments have set stringent constraints on the
polarization angle of photons propagating in an expanding universe: . The polarization of the Cosmic Microwave
Background radiation (CMB) is reviewed in the context of nonlinear
electrodynamics (NLED). We compute the polarization angle of photons
propagating in a cosmological background with planar symmetry. For this
purpose, we use the Pagels-Tomboulis (PT) Lagrangian density describing NLED,
which has the form , where , and the parameter featuring the
non-Maxwellian character of the PT nonlinear description of the electromagnetic
interaction. After looking at the polarization components in the plane
orthogonal to the ()-direction of propagation of the CMB photons, the
polarization angle is defined in terms of the eccentricity of the universe, a
geometrical property whose evolution on cosmic time (from the last scattering
surface to the present) is constrained by the strength of magnetic fields over
extragalactic distances.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures, minor changes, references adde
Chern-Simons Term for BF Theory and Gravity as a Generalized Topological Field Theory in Four Dimensions
A direct relation between two types of topological field theories,
Chern-Simons theory and BF theory, is presented by using ``Generalized
Differential Calculus'', which extends an ordinary p-form to an ordered pair of
p and (p+1)-form. We first establish the generalized Chern-Weil homomormism for
generalized curvature invariant polynomials in general even dimensional
manifolds, and then show that BF gauge theory can be obtained from the action
which is the generalized second Chern class with gauge group G. Particularly
when G is taken as SL(2,C) in four dimensions, general relativity with
cosmological constant can be derived by constraining the topological BF theory.Comment: Improved abstract and introduction with 11 references added. Accepted
for publication in Physical Review
Fermions in three-dimensional spinfoam quantum gravity
We study the coupling of massive fermions to the quantum mechanical dynamics
of spacetime emerging from the spinfoam approach in three dimensions. We first
recall the classical theory before constructing a spinfoam model of quantum
gravity coupled to spinors. The technique used is based on a finite expansion
in inverse fermion masses leading to the computation of the vacuum to vacuum
transition amplitude of the theory. The path integral is derived as a sum over
closed fermionic loops wrapping around the spinfoam. The effects of quantum
torsion are realised as a modification of the intertwining operators assigned
to the edges of the two-complex, in accordance with loop quantum gravity. The
creation of non-trivial curvature is modelled by a modification of the pure
gravity vertex amplitudes. The appendix contains a review of the geometrical
and algebraic structures underlying the classical coupling of fermions to three
dimensional gravity.Comment: 40 pages, 3 figures, version accepted for publication in GER