A model problem for the initial-boundary value formulation of Einstein's field equations

In many numerical implementations of the Cauchy formulation of Einstein's field equations one encounters artificial boundaries which raises the issue of specifying boundary conditions. Such conditions have to be chosen carefully. In particular, they should be compatible with the constraints, yield a well posed initial-boundary value formulation and incorporate some physically desirable properties like, for instance, minimizing reflections of gravitational radiation. Motivated by the problem in General Relativity, we analyze a model problem, consisting of a formulation of Maxwell's equations on a spatially compact region of spacetime with timelike boundaries. The form in which the equations are written is such that their structure is very similar to the Einstein-Christoffel symmetric hyperbolic formulations of Einstein's field equations. For this model problem, we specify a family of Sommerfeld-type constraint-preserving boundary conditions and show that the resulting initial-boundary value formulations are well posed. We expect that these results can be generalized to the Einstein-Christoffel formulations of General Relativity, at least in the case of linearizations about a stationary background.Comment: 25 page

Radiation from accelerated black holes in an anti-de Sitter universe

We study gravitational and electromagnetic radiation generated by uniformly accelerated charged black holes in anti-de Sitter spacetime. This is described by the C-metric exact solution of the Einstein-Maxwell equations with a negative cosmological constant Lambda. We explicitly find and interpret the pattern of radiation that characterizes the dependence of the fields on a null direction from which the (timelike) conformal infinity is approached. This directional pattern exhibits specific properties which are more complicated if compared with recent analogous results obtained for asymptotic behavior of fields near a de Sitter-like infinity. In particular, for large acceleration the anti-de Sitter-like infinity is divided by Killing horizons into several distinct domains with a different structure of principal null directions, in which the patterns of radiation differ.Comment: 19 pages, 11 colour figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. D [Low quality figures are included in this version because of arXive size restrictions. The version with the standard quality figures is available at http://utf.mff.cuni.cz/~podolsky/jppubl.htm.

Twistor Bundles, Einstein Equations and Real Structures

We consider sphere bundles P and P' of totally null planes of maximal dimension and opposite self-duality over a 4-dimensional manifold equipped with a Weyl or Riemannian geometry. The fibre product PP' of P and P' is found to be appropriate for the encoding of both the selfdual and the Einstein-Weyl equations for the 4-metric. This encoding is realized in terms of the properties of certain well defined geometrical objects on PP'. The formulation is suitable for both complex- and real-valued metrics. It unifies results for all three possible real signatures. In the purely Riemannian positive definite case it implies the existence of a natural almost hermitian structure on PP' whose integrability conditions correspond to the self-dual Einstein equations of the 4-metric. All Einstein equations for the 4-metric are also encoded in the properties of this almost hermitian structure on PP'.Comment: Paper accepted in Classical and Quantum Gravity, Special issue in honour of Professor Andrzej Trautma

The Raychaudhuri equations: a brief review

We present a brief review on the Raychaudhuri equations. Beginning with a summary of the essential features of the original article by Raychaudhuri and subsequent work of numerous authors, we move on to a discussion of the equations in the context of alternate non--Riemannian spacetimes as well as other theories of gravity, with a special mention on the equations in spacetimes with torsion (Einstein--Cartan--Sciama--Kibble theory). Finally, we give an overview of some recent applications of these equations in General Relativity, Quantum Field Theory, String Theory and the theory of relativisitic membranes. We conclude with a summary and provide our own perspectives on directions of future research.Comment: 35 pages, two figures, to appear in the special issue of Pramana dedicated to the memory of A. K. Raychaudhur