The Interface between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity

The generation, as well as the detection, of gravitational radiation by means of charged superfluids is considered. One example of such a "charged superfluid" consists of a pair of Planck-mass-scale, ultracold "Millikan oil drops," each with a single electron on its surface, in which the oil of the drop is replaced by superfluid helium. When levitated in a magnetic trap, and subjected to microwave-frequency electromagnetic radiation, a pair of such "Millikan oil drops" separated by a microwave wavelength can become an efficient quantum transducer between quadrupolar electromagnetic and gravitational radiation. This leads to the possibility of a Hertz-like experiment, in which the source of microwave-frequency gravitational radiation consists of one pair of "Millikan oil drops" driven by microwaves, and the receiver of such radiation consists of another pair of "Millikan oil drops" in the far field driven by the gravitational radiation generated by the first pair. The second pair then back-converts the gravitional radiation into detectable microwaves. The enormous enhancement of the conversion efficiency for these quantum transducers over that for electrons arises from the fact that there exists macroscopic quantum phase coherence in these charged superfluid systems.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures; Lamb medal lecture on January 5, 2006 at the Physics of Quantum Electronics Winter Colloquium at Snowbird, Utah; accepted for publication in J. Mod. Optic

Calculation of permittivity tensors for invisibility devices by effective medium approach in general relativity

Permittivity tensors of arbitrary shaped invisibility devices are obtained using effective medium approach in general relativity. As special cases, analytical expressions for the permittivity tensors of invisibility cloaks for the elliptic cylinder, prolate spheroid, and the confocal paraboloid geometry are derived. In the case of elliptic cylinder, we found that the point of infinite light speed in the electromagnetic space becomes two points in the physical space in the zz component of the permittivity tensor. This result is different from the case of perfect cylinder in which there is a line of cloak at which the speed of light becomes infinite. In the cases of prolate spheroid and confocal paraboloid, the point of infinite light speed in the electromagnetic space becomes line in the physical space for the first two tensor components and the third component of the permittivity tensor becomes singular at the line of cloak

Possible alternative mechanism to SUSY: conservative extensions of the Poincar\'e group

A group theoretical mechanism is outlined, which can indecomposably extend the Poincar\'e group by the compact internal (gauge) symmetries at the price of allowing some nilpotent (or, more precisely: solvable) internal symmetries in addition. Due to the presence of this nilpotent part, the prohibitive argument of the well known Coleman-Mandula and McGlinn no-go theorems do not go through. In contrast to SUSY or extended SUSY, in our construction the symmetries extending the Poincar\'e group will be all internal, i.e. they do not act on the spacetime, merely on some internal degrees of freedom -- hence the name: conservative extensions of the Poincar\'e group. Using the Levi decomposition and O'Raifeartaigh theorem, the general structure of all possible conservative extensions of the Poincar\'e group is outlined, and a concrete example group is presented with U(1) being the compact gauge group component. It is argued that such nilpotent internal symmetries may be inapparent symmetries of some more fundamental field variables, and therefore do not carry an ab initio contradiction with the present experimental understanding in particle physics. The construction is compared to (extended) SUSY, since SUSY is somewhat analogous to the proposed mechanism. It is pointed out, however, that the proposed mechanism is less irregular in comparison to SUSY, in certain aspects. The only exoticity needed in comparison to a traditional gauge theory setting is that the full group of internal symmetries is not purely compact, but is a semi-direct product of a nilpotent and of a compact part.Comment: 10 pages, contribution to Proceedings of X. International Symposium on Quantum Theory and Symmetries, Springer (2018

Wormhole Cosmic Censorship

We analyze the properties of a Kerr-like wormhole supported by phantom matter, which is an exact solution of the Einstein-phantom field equations. It is shown that the solution has a naked ring singularity which is unreachable to null geodesics falling freely from the outside. Similarly to Roger Penrose's cosmic censorship, that states that all naked singularities in the Universe must be protected by event horizons, here we conjecture from our results that a naked singularity can also be fully protected by the intrinsic properties of a wormhole's throat

Gravitational Chern-Simons Lagrangians and black hole entropy

We analyze the problem of defining the black hole entropy when Chern-Simons terms are present in the action. Extending previous works, we define a general procedure, valid in any odd dimensions both for purely gravitational CS terms and for mixed gauge-gravitational ones. The final formula is very similar to Wald's original formula valid for covariant actions, with a significant modification. Notwithstanding an apparent violation of covariance we argue that the entropy formula is indeed covariant.Comment: 39 page

On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton

Starting from first principles and general assumptions Newton's law of gravitation is shown to arise naturally and unavoidably in a theory in which space is emergent through a holographic scenario. Gravity is explained as an entropic force caused by changes in the information associated with the positions of material bodies. A relativistic generalization of the presented arguments directly leads to the Einstein equations. When space is emergent even Newton's law of inertia needs to be explained. The equivalence principle leads us to conclude that it is actually this law of inertia whose origin is entropic.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figure

Remarks on matter-gravity entanglement, entropy, information loss and events

I recall my 'matter-gravity entanglement hypothesis' and briefly review the evidence for it, based partly on its seeming ability to resolve a number of puzzles related to quantum black holes including the black hole information loss puzzle. I point out that, according to this hypothesis, there is a quantity, i.e. the universe's 'matter-gravity entanglement entropy' -- which deserves to be considered the 'entropy of the universe' and which, with suitable initial conditions, will plausibly increase monotonically with cosmological time. In the last section, which is more tentative and raises a number of further puzzles and open questions, I discuss the prospects for a notion of 'events' which 'happen' whose statistical properties are described by this entropy of the universe. It is hoped that such a theory of events may be a step on the way towards explaining how initial quantum fluctuations convert themselves into inhomogeneities in a seemingly classical universe.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures. Invited contribution to the proceedings of the conference "Progress and Visions in Quantum Theory in View of Gravity", Leipzig, Germany, October 2018, based on part of a talk at the workshop "The Mysterious Universe: Dark Matter -- Dark Energy -- Cosmic Magnetic Fields" MITP, Mainz, Germany, June 4, 2019. (v2 No change) v3: References added v4: typos etc. correcte

SL(2,R)SL(2,R) symmetry and quasi-normal modes in the BTZ black hole

With the help of two new intrinsic tensor fields associated with the $SL(2,R)$ quadratic Casimir of Killing fields, we uncover the $SL(2,R)$ symmetry satisfied by the solutions to the equations of motion for various fields in the BTZ black hole in a uniform way by performing tensor and spinor analysis without resorting to any specific coordinate system. Then with the standard algebraic method developed recently, we determine the quasi-normal modes for various fields in the BTZ black hole. As a result, the quasi-normal modes are given by the infinite tower of descendants of the chiral highest weight mode, which is in good agreement with the previous analytic result obtained by exactly solving equations of motion instead.Comment: JHEP style, 1+13 pages, version to appear in JHE

Large entropy production inside black holes: a simple model

Particles dropped into a rotating black hole can collide near the inner horizon with enormous energies. The entropy produced by these collisions can be several times larger than the increase in the horizon entropy due to the addition of the particles. In this paper entropy is produced by releasing large numbers of neutrons near the outer horizon of a rotating black hole such that they collide near the inner horizon at energies similar to those achieved at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The increase in horizon entropy is approximately 80 per dropped neutron pair, while the entropy produced in the collisions is 160 per neutron pair. The collision entropy is produced inside the horizon, so this excess entropy production does not violate Bousso's bound limiting the entropy that can go through the black hole's horizon. The generalized laws of black hole thermodynamics are obeyed. No individual observer inside the black hole sees a violation of the second law of thermodynamicsComment: 10 page

Energy's and amplitudes' positivity

In QFT, the null energy condition (NEC) for a classical field configuration is usually associated with that configuration's stability against small perturbations, and with the sub-luminality of these. Here, we exhibit an effective field theory that allows for stable NEC-violating solutions with exactly luminal excitations only. The model is the recently introduced `galileon', or more precisely its conformally invariant version. We show that the theory's low-energy S-matrix obeys standard positivity as implied by dispersion relations. However we also show that if the relevant NEC-violating solution is inside the effective theory, then other (generic) solutions allow for superluminal signal propagation. While the usual association between sub-luminality and positivity is not obeyed by our example, that between NEC and sub-luminality is, albeit in a less direct way than usual.Comment: 21 pages. v2: Typos in eq. (2.41) and (2.41) corrected; discussion of section 2.3 modified accordingly. Other sections and conclusions unchanged. Matches the Erratum published in JHE