Hadamard state in Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime

We construct a state in the Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime which is invariant under the action of its group of symmetries. Our state is not defined in the whole Kruskal extension of this spacetime, but rather in a subset of the maximally extended conformal diagram. The construction is based on a careful use of the bulk-to-boundary technique. We will show that our state is Hadamard and that it is not a KMS state, differently from the case of states constructed in spacetimes containing only one event horizon.Comment: More emphasis put on the result. 41 pages. Uses natbib and iopart. This version is going to be published in Classical and Quantum Gravity. PACS numbers: 04.62.+v,04.70.Dy,03.65.Fd. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:0907.1034 by other author

Charged quark stars in metric f(R)f(R) gravity

We provide the modified TOV equations for the hydrostatic equilibrium of charged compact stars within the metric $f(R)$ gravitational background. We adopt the MIT bag model EoS for the dense matter and assume a charge distribution where the electric charge density $\rho_{\rm ch}$ is proportional to the standard energy density $\rho$. Using the Starobinsky model, we explore the role of the $\alpha R^2$ term, where $\alpha$ is a free constant and $R$ the Ricci scalar, on the global properties of charged stars such as radius, mass and total charge. We present the dependence of the structure of the star for several values of $\alpha$ and for different values of the constant parameter $\beta\equiv \rho_{\rm ch}/\rho$. Remarkably, we find that the radius decreases with respect to its GR value for low central densities, while the opposite occurs in the high-central-density region. The mass measured at the surface always decreases and the maximum-total charge undergoes a substantial increase as the parameter $\alpha$ increases. We also illustrate the variations of the asymptotic mass as a consequence of the electric charge and the extra quadratic term.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures. To appear in JCA

Dark Interactions and Cosmological Fine-Tuning

Cosmological models involving an interaction between dark matter and dark energy have been proposed in order to solve the so-called coincidence problem. Different forms of coupling have been studied, but there have been claims that observational data seem to narrow (some of) them down to something annoyingly close to the $\Lambda$CDM model, thus greatly reducing their ability to deal with the problem in the first place. The smallness problem of the initial energy density of dark energy has also been a target of cosmological models in recent years. Making use of a moderately general coupling scheme, this paper aims to unite these different approaches and shed some light as to whether this class of models has any true perspective in suppressing the aforementioned issues that plague our current understanding of the universe, in a quantitative and unambiguous way.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in JCAP. Minor corrections, one figure replaced, references adde

Trans-Planckian Physics and the Spectrum of Fluctuations in a Bouncing Universe

In this paper, we calculate the spectrum of scalar field fluctuations in a bouncing, asymptotically flat Universe, and investigate the dependence of the result on changes in the physics on length scales shorter than the Planck length which are introduced via modifications of the dispersion relation. In this model, there are no ambiguities concerning the choice of the initial vacuum state. We study an example in which the final spectrum of fluctuations depends sensitively on the modifications of the dispersion relation without needing to invoke complex frequencies. Changes in the amplitude and in the spectral index are possible, in addition to modulations of the spectrum. This strengthens the conclusions of previous work in which the spectrum of cosmological perturbations in expanding inflationary cosmologies was studied, and it was found that, for dispersion relations for which the evolution is not adiabatic, the spectrum changes from the standard prediction of scale-invariance.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, RevTeX4. Analytical determination of the spectrum, corrected some typos, conclusions unchange

Radial oscillations and stability of compact stars in f(R, T) = R+ 2β T gravity

ABSTRACT We examine the static structure configurations and radial stability of compact stars within the context of f(R, T) gravity, with R and T standing for the Ricci scalar and trace of the energy-momentum tensor, respectively. Considering the f(R, T)=R+2β T functional form, with β being a constant, we derive the corresponding hydrostatic equilibrium equation and the modified Chandrasekhar's pulsation equation. The mass-radius relations and radial mode frequencies are obtained for some realistic equations of state. Our results show that the traditional stellar stability criteria, namely, the necessary condition d M/dρc >0 and sufficient condition ω2 >0, still hold in this theory of gravity

Neutron stars in f(R,T) gravity with conserved energy-momentum tensor: Hydrostatic equilibrium and asteroseismology

ABSTRACT We investigate the equilibrium and radial stability of spherically symmetric relativistic stars, considering a polytropic equation of state (EoS), within the framework of f(R,T) gravity with a conservative energy-momentum tensor. Both modified stellar structure equations and Chandrasekhar's pulsation equations are derived for the f(R,T)= R+ h(T) gravity model, where the function h(T) assumes a specific form in order to safeguard the conservation equation for the energy-momentum tensor. The neutron star properties, such as radius, mass, binding energy and oscillation spectrum are studied in detail. Our results show that a cusp — which signals the appearance of instability — is formed when the binding energy is plotted as a function of the compact star proper mass. We find that the squared frequency of the fundamental vibration mode passes through zero at the central-density value corresponding to such a cusp where the binding energy is a minimum