429 research outputs found
Closed Trapped Surfaces in Cosmology
The existence of closed trapped surfaces need not imply a cosmological
singularity when the spatial hypersurfaces are compact. This is illustrated by
a variety of examples, in particular de Sitter spacetime admits many closed
trapped surfaces and obeys the null convergence condition but is non-singular
in the k=+1 frame.Comment: 11 pages. To appear in GRG, Vol 35 (August issue
Neutrino Oscillations Induced by Gravitational Recoil Effects
Quantum gravitational fluctuations of the space-time background, described by
virtual D branes, may induce neutrino oscillations if a tiny violation of the
Lorentz invariance (or a violation of the equivalence principle) is imposed. In
this framework, the oscillation length of massless neutrinos turns out to be
proportional to M/E^2, where E is the neutrino energy and M is the mass scale
characterizing the topological fluctuations in the vacuum. Such a functional
dependence on the energy is the same obtained in the framework of loop quantum
gravity.Comment: 5 pages, LaTex fil
Numerical simulation of nonunitary gravity-induced localization
The localization of a quantum state is numerically exhibited in a nonunitary
Newtonian model for gravity. It is shown that an unlocalized state of a ball of
mass just above the expected threshold of 10^11 proton masses evolves into a
mixed state with vanishing coherences above some localization lengths.Comment: RevTex, 6 figures available on request from the authors To appear in
Physica
Dynamical Formation of Horizons in Recoiling D Branes
A toy calculation of string/D-particle interactions within a world-sheet
approach indicates that quantum recoil effects - reflecting the gravitational
back-reaction on space-time foam due to the propagation of energetic particles
- induces the appearance of a microscopic event horizon, or `bubble', inside
which stable matter can exist. The scattering event causes this horizon to
expand, but we expect quantum effects to cause it to contract again, in a
`bounce' solution. Within such `bubbles', massless matter propagates with an
effective velocity that is less than the velocity of light in vacuo, which may
lead to observable violations of Lorentz symmetry that may be tested
experimentally. The conformal invariance conditions in the interior geometry of
the bubbles select preferentially three for the number of the spatial
dimensions, corresponding to a consistent formulation of the interaction of D3
branes with recoiling D particles, which are allowed to fluctuate independently
only on the D3-brane hypersurface.Comment: 25 pages LaTeX, 4 eps figures include
The evolution of density perturbations in f(R) gravity
We give a rigorous and mathematically well defined presentation of the
Covariant and Gauge Invariant theory of scalar perturbations of a
Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker universe for Fourth Order Gravity, where
the matter is described by a perfect fluid with a barotropic equation of state.
The general perturbations equations are applied to a simple background solution
of R^n gravity. We obtain exact solutions of the perturbations equations for
scales much bigger than the Hubble radius. These solutions have a number of
interesting features. In particular, we find that for all values of n there is
always a growing mode for the density contrast, even if the universe undergoes
an accelerated expansion. Such a behaviour does not occur in standard General
Relativity, where as soon as Dark Energy dominates, the density contrast
experiences an unrelenting decay. This peculiarity is sufficiently novel to
warrant further investigation on fourth order gravity models.Comment: 21 pages, 2 figures, typos corrected, submitted to PR
Linearisation instability of gravity waves?
Gravity waves in irrotational dust spacetimes are characterised by nonzero
magnetic Weyl tensor . In the linearised theory, the divergence of
is set to zero. Recently Lesame et al. [Phys. Rev. D {\bf 53}, 738
(1996)] presented an argument to show that, in the exact nonlinear theory, forces , thus implying a linearisation instability for gravity
waves interacting with matter. However a sign error in the equations
invalidates their conclusion. Bianchi type V spacetimes are shown to include
examples with . An improved covariant formalism is used to
show that in a generic irrotational dust spacetime, the covariant constraint
equations are preserved under evolution. It is shown elsewhere that \mbox{div}
H=0 does not generate further conditions.Comment: 8 pages Revtex; to appear Phys. Rev.
Decoherence of Macroscopic Closed Systems within Newtonian Quantum Gravity
A theory recently proposed by the author aims to explain decoherence and the
thermodynamical behaviour of closed systems within a conservative, unitary,
framework for quantum gravity by assuming that the operators tied to the
gravitational degrees of freedom are unobservable and equating physical entropy
with matter-gravity entanglement entropy. Here we obtain preliminary results on
the extent of decoherence this theory predicts. We treat first a static state
which, if one were to ignore quantum gravitational effects, would be a quantum
superposition of two spatially displaced states of a single classically well
describable ball of uniform mass density in empty space. Estimating the quantum
gravitational effects on this system within a simple Newtonian approximation,
we obtain formulae which predict e.g. that as long as the mass of the ball is
considerably larger than the Planck mass, such a would-be-coherent static
superposition will actually be decohered whenever the separation of the centres
of mass of the two ball-states excedes a small fraction (which decreases as the
mass of the ball increases) of the ball radius. We then obtain a formula for
the quantum gravitational correction to the would-be-pure density matrix of a
non-relativistic many-body Schroedinger wave function and argue that this
formula predicts decoherence between configurations which differ (at least) in
the "relocation" of a cluster of particles of Planck mass. We estimate the
entropy of some simple model closed systems, finding a tendency for it to
increase with "matter-clumping" suggestive of a link with existing
phenomenological discussions of cosmological entropy increase.Comment: 11 pages, plain TeX, no figures. Accepted for publication as a
"Letter to the Editor" in "Classical and Quantum Gravity
Is it possible to recover information from the black-hole radiation?
In the framework of communication theory, we analyse the gedanken experiment
in which beams of quanta bearing information are flashed towards a black hole.
We show that stimulated emission at the horizon provides a correlation between
incoming and outgoing radiations consisting of bosons. For fermions, the
mechanism responsible for the correlation is the Fermi exclusion principle.
Each one of these mechanisms is responsible for the a partial transfer of the
information originally coded in the incoming beam to the black--hole radiation.
We show that this process is very efficient whenever stimulated emission
overpowers spontaneous emission (bosons). Thus, black holes are not `ultimate
waste baskets of information'.Comment: 9 pages (2 figures available upon request), CERN-TH 6811/93, (LateX
file
Quantum Dissipative Effects and Neutrinos : current constraints and future perspectives
We establish the most stringent experimental constraints coming from recent
terrestrial neutrino experiments on quantum mechanical decoherence effects in
neutrino systems. Taking a completely phenomenological approach, we probe
vacuum oscillations plus quantum decoherence between two neutrino species in
the channels , and , admitting that the quantum decoherence parameter is related
to the neutrino energy as : ,
with and 2. Our bounds are valid for a neutrino mass squared
difference compatible with the atmospheric, the solar and, in many cases, the
LSND scale. We also qualitatively discuss the perspectives of the future long
baseline neutrino experiments to further probe quantum dissipation.Comment: 26 pages, 8 encapsulated postscript figure
Anisotropic Pressures at Ultra-stiff Singularities and the Stability of Cyclic Universes
We show that the inclusion of simple anisotropic pressures stops the
isotropic Friedmann universe being a stable attractor as an initial or final
singularity is approached when pressures can exceed the energy density. This
shows that the situation with isotropic pressures, studied earlier in the
context of cyclic and ekpyrotic cosmologies, is not generic, and Kasner-like
behaviour occurs when simple pressure anisotropies are present. We find all the
asymptotic behaviours and determine the dynamics when the anisotropic principal
pressures are proportional to the density. We expect distortions and
anisotropies to be significantly amplified through a simple cosmological bounce
in cyclic or ekpyrotic cosmologies when ultra-stiff pressures are present.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figure
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