6,486 research outputs found
Extremal black holes, gravitational entropy and nonstationary metric fields
We show that extremal black holes have zero entropy by pointing out a simple
fact: they are time-independent throughout the spacetime and correspond to a
single classical microstate. We show that non-extremal black holes, including
the Schwarzschild black hole, contain a region hidden behind the event horizon
where all their Killing vectors are spacelike. This region is nonstationary and
the time labels a continuous set of classical microstates, the phase space
, where is a three-metric induced on a
spacelike hypersurface and is its momentum conjugate. We
determine explicitly the phase space in the interior region of the
Schwarzschild black hole. We identify its entropy as a measure of an outside
observer's ignorance of the classical microstates in the interior since the
parameter which labels the states lies anywhere between 0 and 2M. We
provide numerical evidence from recent simulations of gravitational collapse in
isotropic coordinates that the entropy of the Schwarzschild black hole stems
from the region inside and near the event horizon where the metric fields are
nonstationary; the rest of the spacetime, which is static, makes no
contribution. Extremal black holes have an event horizon but in contrast to
non-extremal black holes, their extended spacetimes do not possess a bifurcate
Killing horizon. This is consistent with the fact that extremal black holes are
time-independent and therefore have no distinct time-reverse.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures. To appear in Class. and Quant. Gravity. Based on
an essay selected for honorable mention in the 2010 gravity research
foundation essay competitio
Monitoring the Thermal Power of Nuclear Reactors with a Prototype Cubic Meter Antineutrino Detector
In this paper, we estimate how quickly and how precisely a reactor's
operational status and thermal power can be monitored over hour to month time
scales, using the antineutrino rate as measured by a cubic meter scale
detector. Our results are obtained from a detector we have deployed and
operated at 25 meter standoff from a reactor core. This prototype can detect a
prompt reactor shutdown within five hours, and monitor relative thermal power
to three percent within seven days. Monitoring of short-term power changes in
this way may be useful in the context of International Atomic Energy Agency's
(IAEA) Reactor Safeguards Regime, or other cooperative monitoring regimes.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure
Isolated Horizon, Killing Horizon and Event Horizon
We consider space-times which in addition to admitting an isolated horizon
also admit Killing horizons with or without an event horizon. We show that an
isolated horizon is a Killing horizon provided either (1) it admits a
stationary neighbourhood or (2) it admits a neighbourhood with two independent,
commuting Killing vectors. A Killing horizon is always an isolated horizon. For
the case when an event horizon is definable, all conceivable relative locations
of isolated horizon and event horizons are possible. Corresponding conditions
are given.Comment: 14 pages, Latex, no figures. Some arguments tightened. To appear in
Class. Quant. Gra
New thought experiment to test the generalized second law of thermodynamics
We propose an extension of the original thought experiment proposed by
Geroch, which sparked much of the actual debate and interest on black hole
thermodynamics, and show that the generalized second law of thermodynamics is
in compliance with it.Comment: 4 pages (revtex), 3 figure
Trapped surfaces in prolate collapse in the Gibbons-Penrose construction
We investigate existence and properties of trapped surfaces in two models of
collapsing null dust shells within the Gibbons-Penrose construction. In the
first model, the shell is initially a prolate spheroid, and the resulting
singularity forms at the ends first (relative to a natural time slicing by flat
hyperplanes), in analogy with behavior found in certain prolate collapse
examples considered by Shapiro and Teukolsky. We give an explicit example in
which trapped surfaces are present on the shell, but none exist prior to the
last flat slice, thereby explicitly showing that the absence of trapped
surfaces on a particular, natural slicing does not imply an absence of trapped
surfaces in the spacetime. We then examine a model considered by Barrabes,
Israel and Letelier (BIL) of a cylindrical shell of mass M and length L, with
hemispherical endcaps of mass m. We obtain a "phase diagram" for the presence
of trapped surfaces on the shell with respect to essential parameters and . It is found that no trapped surfaces are
present on the shell when or are sufficiently small. (We are
able only to search for trapped surfaces lying on the shell itself.) In the
limit , the existence or nonexistence of trapped surfaces lying
within the shell is seen to be in remarkably good accord with the hoop
conjecture.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure
Aspergillosis of the CNS in a pediatric liver transplant recipient: Case report and review
A 2-month-old infant who had undergone orthotopic liver transplantation at the age of 2 weeks for carbamoyl phosphate synthetase deficiency developed infection of the CNS due to Aspergillus fumigatus. The patient was successfully treated with administration of a combination of antifungal agents (including intraventricular amphotericin B), drainage of the parietal lobe abscess, and cessation of immunosuppression. An intraventricular catheter was used both to obtain ventricular fluid for microbiologic testing and to deliver amphotericin B during nearly 4 months of treatment. We review literature on aspergillosis in solid-organ transplant recipients, especially those in whom the disease involves the CNS, and discuss in particular clinical presentation, diagnosis, treatment, and outcome
Glassy states and microphase separation in cross-linked homopolymer blends
The physical properties of blends of distinct homopolymers, cross-linked
beyond the gelation point, are addressed via a Landau approach involving a pair
of coupled order-parameter fields: one describing vulcanisation, the other
describing local phase separation. Thermal concentration fluctuations, present
at the time of cross-linking, are frozen in by cross-linking, and the structure
of the resulting glassy fluctuations is analysed at the Gaussian level in
various regimes, determined by the relative values of certain physical
length-scales. The enhancement, due to gelation, of the stability of the blend
with respect to demixing is also analysed. Beyond the corresponding stability
limit, gelation prevents complete demixing, replacing it by microphase
separation, which occurs up to a length-scale set by the rigidity of the
network, as a simple variational scheme reveals.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure
Gravity-induced vacuum dominance
It has been widely believed that, except in very extreme situations, the
influence of gravity on quantum fields should amount to just small,
sub-dominant contributions. This view seemed to be endorsed by the seminal
results obtained over the last decades in the context of renormalization of
quantum fields in curved spacetimes. Here, however, we argue that this belief
is false by showing that there exist well-behaved spacetime evolutions where
the vacuum energy density of free quantum fields is forced, by the very same
background spacetime, to become dominant over any classical energy-density
component. This semiclassical gravity effect finds its roots in the infrared
behavior of fields on curved spacetimes. By estimating the time scale for the
vacuum energy density to become dominant, and therefore for backreaction on the
background spacetime to become important, we argue that this vacuum dominance
may bear unexpected astrophysical and cosmological implications.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett
The speed of gravity in general relativity
The question is discussed of what is the speed of gravity (at the fundamental
non-perturbative level). The question is important, if nowhere else, in
discussing the problem of information "lost" in black holes. It turns out that
the duly defined "gravitational signal" generally may be causal, superluminal
and "semi-superluminal". In the class of globally hyperbolic spacetimes the two
last varieties coincide. And if some (often imposed, but not always satisfied)
conditions hold, the signals may be \emph{only} causal. In this sense the speed
of gravity does not exceed the speed of light.Comment: typos corrected, et
Supergravity at the boundary of AdS supergravity
We give a general analysis of AdS boundary conditions for spin-3/2
Rarita-Schwinger fields and investigate boundary conditions preserving
supersymmetry for a graviton multiplet in AdS_4. Linear Rarita-Schwinger fields
in AdS_d are shown to admit mixed Dirichlet-Neumann boundary conditions when
their mass is in the range . We also demonstrate that
mixed boundary conditions are allowed for larger masses when the inner product
is "renormalized" accordingly with the action. We then use the results obtained
for |m| = 1/l_{AdS} to explore supersymmetric boundary conditions for N = 1
AdS_4 supergravity in which the metric and Rarita-Schwinger fields are
fluctuating at the boundary. We classify boundary conditions that preserve
boundary supersymmetry or superconformal symmetry. Under the AdS/CFT
dictionary, Neumann boundary conditions in d=4 supergravity correspond to
gauging the superconformal group of the 3-dimensional CFT describing M2-branes,
while N = 1 supersymmetric mixed boundary conditions couple the CFT to N = 1
superconformal topologically massive gravity.Comment: 23 pages, RevTe
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