Neutral and charged matter in equilibrium with black holes

We study the conditions of a possible static equilibrium between spherically symmetric, electrically charged or neutral black holes and ambient matter. The following kinds of matter are considered: (1) neutral and charged matter with a linear equation of state p_r = w\rho (for neutral matter the results of our previous work are reproduced), (2) neutral and charged matter with p_r \sim \rho^m, m > 1, and (3) the possible presence of a "vacuum fluid" (the cosmological constant or, more generally, anything that satisfies the equality T^0_0 = T^1_1 at least at the horizon). We find a number of new cases of such an equilibrium, including those generalizing the well-known Majumdar-Papapetrou conditions for charged dust. It turns out, in particular, that ultraextremal black holes cannot be in equilibrium with any matter in the absence of a vacuum fluid; meanwhile, matter with w > 0, if it is properly charged, can surround an extremal charged black hole.Comment: 12 pages, no figures, final version published in PR

Stationary perturbations and infinitesimal rotations of static Einstein-Yang-Mills configurations with bosonic matter

Using the Kaluza-Klein structure of stationary spacetimes, a framework for analyzing stationary perturbations of static Einstein-Yang-Mills configurations with bosonic matter fields is presented. It is shown that the perturbations giving rise to non-vanishing ADM angular momentum are governed by a self-adjoint system of equations for a set of gauge invariant scalar amplitudes. The method is illustrated for SU(2) gauge fields, coupled to a Higgs doublet or a Higgs triplet. It is argued that slowly rotating black holes arise generically in self-gravitating non-Abelian gauge theories with bosonic matter, whereas, in general, soliton solutions do not have rotating counterparts.Comment: 8 pages, revtex, no figure

Self-accelerated Universe

It is widely believed that the large redshifts for distant supernovae are explained by the vacuum energy dominance, or, in other words, by the cosmological constant in Einstein's equations, which is responsible for the anti-gravitation effect. A tacit assumption is that particles move along a geodesic for the background metric. This is in the same spirit as the consensus regarding the uniform Galilean motion of a free electron. However, there is a runaway solution to the Lorentz--Dirac equation governing the behavior of a radiating electron, in addition to the Galilean solution. Likewise, a runaway solution to the entire system of equations, both gravitation and matter equations of motion including, may provide an alternative explanation for the accelerated expansion of the Universe, without recourse to the hypothetic cosmological constant.Comment: 11 pages; Talk at the 9th Adriatic Meeting, Dubrovnic, Croatia, 4-14 September, 2003, Minor improvement, references added; to appear in ``Progress in General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Research'', Nova Science Publisher

Gravitational Acceleration of Spinning Bodies From Lunar Laser Ranging Measurements

The Sun's relativistic gravitational gradient accelerations of Earth and Moon, dependent on the motions of the latter bodies, act upon the system's internal angular momentum. This spin-orbit force (which plays a part in determining the gravity wave signal templates for astrophysical sources) slightly accelerates the Earth-Moon system as a whole, but it more robustly perturbs that system's internal dynamics with a 5 cm, synodically oscillating range contribution which is presently measured to 4 mm precision by more than three decades of lunar laser ranging.Comment: 10 pages, PCTex32.v3.

Study of multi black hole and ring singularity apparent horizons

We study critical black hole separations for the formation of a common apparent horizon in systems of $N$ - black holes in a time symmetric configuration. We study in detail the aligned equal mass cases for $N=2,3,4,5$, and relate them to the unequal mass binary black hole case. We then study the apparent horizon of the time symmetric initial geometry of a ring singularity of different radii. The apparent horizon is used as indicative of the location of the event horizon in an effort to predict a critical ring radius that would generate an event horizon of toroidal topology. We found that a good estimate for this ring critical radius is $20/(3\pi) M$. We briefly discuss the connection of this two cases through a discrete black hole 'necklace' configuration.Comment: 31 pages, 21 figure

Charged Annular Disks and Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m Type Black Holes from Extremal Dust

We present the first analytical superposition of a charged black hole with an annular disk of extremal dust. In order to obtain the solutions, we first solve the Einstein-Maxwell field equations for sources that represent disk-like configurations of matter in confomastatic spacetimes by assuming a functional dependence among the metric function, the electric potential and an auxiliary function,which is taken as a solution of the Laplace equation. We then employ the Lord Kelvin Inversion Method applied to models of finite extension in order to obtain annular disks. The structures obtained extend to infinity, but their total masses are finite and all the energy conditions are satisfied. Finally, we observe that the extremal Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m black hole can be embedded into the center of the disks by adding a boundary term in the inversion.Comment: 17 revtex pages, 8 eps figure

Relativistic static thin dust disks with an inner edge: An infinite family of new exact solutions

An infinite family of new exact solutions of the Einstein vacuum equations for static and axially symmetric spacetimes is presented. All the metric functions of the solutions are explicitly computed and the obtained expressions are simply written in terms of oblate spheroidal coordinates. Furthermore, the solutions are asymptotically flat and regular everywhere, as it is shown by computing all the curvature scalars. These solutions describe an infinite family of thin dust disks with a central inner edge, whose energy densities are everywhere positive and well behaved, in such a way that their energy-momentum tensor are in fully agreement with all the energy conditions. Now, although the disks are of infinite extension, all of them have finite mass. The superposition of the first member of this family with a Schwarzschild black hole was presented previously [G. A. Gonz\'alez and A. C. Guti\'errez-Pi\~neres, arXiv: 0811.3002v1 (2008)], whereas that in a subsequent paper a detailed analysis of the corresponding superposition for the full family will be presented.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure

Self-Interaction and Gauge Invariance

A simple unified closed form derivation of the non-linearities of the Einstein, Yang-Mills and spinless (e.g., chiral) meson systems is given. For the first two, the non-linearities are required by locality and consistency; in all cases, they are determined by the conserved currents associated with the initial (linear) gauge invariance of the first kind. Use of first-order formalism leads uniformly to a simple cubic self-interaction.Comment: Missing last reference added. 9 pages, This article, the first paper in Gen. Rel. Grav. [1 (1970) 9], is now somewhat inaccessible; the present posting is the original version, with a few subsequent references included. Updates update

A survey of spinning test particle orbits in Kerr spacetime

We investigate the dynamics of the Papapetrou equations in Kerr spacetime. These equations provide a model for the motion of a relativistic spinning test particle orbiting a rotating (Kerr) black hole. We perform a thorough parameter space search for signs of chaotic dynamics by calculating the Lyapunov exponents for a large variety of initial conditions. We find that the Papapetrou equations admit many chaotic solutions, with the strongest chaos occurring in the case of eccentric orbits with pericenters close to the limit of stability against plunge into a maximally spinning Kerr black hole. Despite the presence of these chaotic solutions, we show that physically realistic solutions to the Papapetrou equations are not chaotic; in all cases, the chaotic solutions either do not correspond to realistic astrophysical systems, or involve a breakdown of the test-particle approximation leading to the Papapetrou equations (or both). As a result, the gravitational radiation from bodies spiraling into much more massive black holes (as detectable, for example, by LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) should not exhibit any signs of chaos.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. D. Follow-up to gr-qc/0210042. Figures are low-resolution in order to satisfy archive size constraints; a high-resolution version is available at http://www.michaelhartl.com/papers

Stationary axisymmetric exteriors for perturbations of isolated bodies in general relativity, to second order

Perturbed stationary axisymmetric isolated bodies, e.g. stars, represented by a matter-filled interior and an asymptotically flat vacuum exterior joined at a surface where the Darmois matching conditions are satisfied, are considered. The initial state is assumed to be static. The perturbations of the matching conditions are derived and used as boundary conditions for the perturbed Ernst equations in the exterior region. The perturbations are calculated to second order. The boundary conditions are overdetermined: necessary and sufficient conditions for their compatibility are derived. The special case of perturbations of spherical bodies is given in detail.Comment: RevTeX; 32 pp. Accepted by Phys. Rev. D. Added references and extra comments in introductio