Collapsing and static thin massive charged dust shells in a Reissner-Nordstr\"om black hole background in higher dimensions

The problem of a spherically symmetric charged thin shell of dust collapsing gravitationally into a charged Reissner-Nordstr\"om black hole in $d$ spacetime dimensions is studied within the theory of general relativity. Static charged shells in such a background are also analyzed. First a derivation of the equation of motion of such a shell in a $d$-dimensional spacetime is given. Then a proof of the cosmic censorship conjecture in a charged collapsing framework is presented, and a useful constraint which leads to an upper bound for the rest mass of a charged shell with an empty interior is derived. It is also proved that a shell with total mass equal to charge, i.e., an extremal shell, in an empty interior, can only stay in neutral equilibrium outside its gravitational radius. This implies that it is not possible to generate a regular extremal black hole by placing an extremal dust thin shell within its own gravitational radius. Moreover, it is shown, for an empty interior, that the rest mass of the shell is limited from above. Then several types of behavior of oscillatory charged shells are studied. In the presence of a horizon, it is shown that an oscillatory shell always enters the horizon and reemerges in a new asymptotically flat region of the extended Reissner-Nordstr\"om spacetime. On the other hand, for an overcharged interior, i.e., a shell with no horizons, an example showing that the shell can achieve a stable equilibrium position is presented. The results presented have applications in brane scenarios with extra large dimensions, where the creation of tiny higher dimensional charged black holes in current particle accelerators might be a real possibility, and generalize to higher dimensions previous calculations on the dynamics of charged shells in four dimensions.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figure

The Long-Term Future of Space Travel

The fact that we apparently live in an accelerating universe places limitations on where humans might visit. If the current energy density of the universe is dominated by a cosmological constant, a rocket could reach a galaxy observed today at a redshift of 1.7 on a one-way journey or merely 0.65 on a round trip. Unfortunately these maximal trips are impractical as they require an infinite proper time to traverse. However, calculating the rocket trajectory in detail shows that a rocketeer could nearly reach such galaxies within a lifetime (a long lifetime admittedly -- about 100 years). For less negative values of $w$ the maximal redshift increases becoming infinite for $w\geq -1/3$.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, minor changes to reflect version accepted to PR

The Tolman-Bondi--Vaidya Spacetime: matching timelike dust to null dust

The Tolman-Bondi and Vaidya solutions are two solutions to Einstein equations which describe dust particles and null fluid, respectively. We show that it is possible to match the two solutions in one single spacetime, the Tolman-Bondi--Vaidya spacetime. The new spacetime is divided by a null surface with Tolman-Bondi dust on one side and Vaidya fluid on the other side. The differentiability of the spacetime is discussed. By constructing a specific solution, we show that the metric across the null surface can be at least $C^1$ and the stress-energy tensor is continuous.Comment: 5 pages, no figur

Regularization of the second-order gravitational perturbations produced by a compact object

The equations for the second-order gravitational perturbations produced by a compact-object have highly singular source terms at the point particle limit. At this limit the standard retarded solutions to these equations are ill-defined. Here we construct well-defined and physically meaningful solutions to these equations. These solutions are important for practical calculations: the planned gravitational-wave detector LISA requires preparation of waveform templates for the potential gravitational-waves. Construction of templates with desired accuracy for extreme mass ratio binaries, in which a compact-object inspirals towards a supermassive black-hole, requires calculation of the second-order gravitational perturbations produced by the compact-object.Comment: 12 pages, discussion expanded, to be published in Phys. Rev. D Rapid Communicatio

Optical position meters analyzed in the non-inertial reference frames

In the framework of General Relativity we develop a method for analysis of the operation of the optical position meters in their photodetectors proper reference frames. These frames are non-inertial in general due to the action of external fluctuative forces on meters test masses, including detectors. For comparison we also perform the calculations in the laboratory (globally inertial) reference frame and demonstrate that for certain optical schemes laboratory-based analysis results in unmeasurable quantities, in contrast to the detector-based analysis. We also calculate the response of the simplest optical meters to weak plane gravitational waves and fluctuative motions of their test masses. It is demonstrated that for the round-trip meter analysis in both the transverse-traceless (TT) and local Lorentz (LL) gauges produces equal results, while for the forward-trip meter corresponding results differ in accordance with different physical assumptions (e.g. procedure of clocks synchronization) implicitly underlying the construction of the TT and LL gauges.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures; co-author added, added section VC with discussion of procedures of clocks synchronization, corrected sign in old Eq.17 (currently it is Eq.18

Supersymmetric quantum cosmological billiards

D=11 Supergravity near a space-like singularity admits a cosmological billiard description based on the hyperbolic Kac-Moody group E10. The quantization of this system via the supersymmetry constraint is shown to lead to wavefunctions involving automorphic (Maass wave) forms under the modular group W^+(E10)=PSL(2,O) with Dirichlet boundary conditions on the billiard domain. A general inequality for the Laplace eigenvalues of these automorphic forms implies that the wave function of the universe is generically complex and always tends to zero when approaching the initial singularity. We discuss possible implications of this result for the question of singularity resolution in quantum cosmology and comment on the differences with other approaches.Comment: 4 pages. v2: Added ref. Version to be published in PR

Uniform Decay of Local Energy and the Semi-Linear Wave Equation on Schwarzchild Space

We provide a uniform decay estimate of Morawetz type for the local energy of general solutions to the inhomogeneous wave equation on a Schwarzchild background. This estimate is both uniform in space and time, so in particular it implies a uniform bound on the sup norm of solutions which can be given in terms of certain inverse powers of the radial and advanced/retarded time coordinate variables. As a model application, we show these estimates give a very simple proof small amplitude scattering for nonlinear scalar fields with higher than cubic interactions.Comment: 24 page

The strong coupling effect and auxiliary fields in the DGP-model

The DGP-model with additional terms in the action is considered. These terms have a special form and include auxiliary scalar fields without kinetic terms, which are non-minimally coupled to gravity. The use of these fields allows one to exclude the mode, which corresponds to the strong coupling effect, from the theory. Effective four-dimensional theory on the brane appears to be the same, as in the original DGP-model.Comment: 9 pages, LaTe

Initial data for gravity coupled to scalar, electromagnetic and Yang-Mills fields

We give ansatze for solving classically the initial value constraints of general relativity minimally coupled to a scalar field, electromagnetism or Yang-Mills theory. The results include both time-symmetric and asymmetric data. The time-asymmetric examples are used to test Penrose's cosmic censorship inequality. We find that the inequality can be violated if only the weak energy condition holds.Comment: 16 pages, RevTeX, references added, presentational changes, version to appear in Phys Rev.

Classical and quantum evolution of non-isentropic hot singular layers in finite-temperature general relativity

The spherically symmetric layer of matter is considered within the frameworks of general relativity. We perform generalization of the already known theory for the case of nonconstant surface entropy and finite temperature. We also propose the minisuperspace model to determine the behaviour of temperature field and perform the Wheeler-DeWitt quantization.Comment: final version, published in GRG as a lette