A theory of thin shells with orbiting constituents

The self-gravitating, spherically symmetric thin shells built of orbiting particles are sstudied. Two new features are found. One is the minimal possible value for an angular momentum of particles, above which elleptic orbits become possible. The second is the coexistence of both the wormhole solutions and the elleptic or hyperbolic orbits for the same values of the parameters (but different initial conditions). Possible applications of these results to astrophysics and quantum black holes are briefly discussed.Comment: 22 pages, Latex, 10 eps figures. CERN preprint no. CERN-TH 2000-16

Felix Alexandrovich Berezin and his work

This is a survey of Berezin's work focused on three topics: representation theory, general concept of quantization, and supermathematics.Comment: LaTeX, 27 page

Dynamics of a thin shell in the Reissner-Nordstrom metric

We describe the dynamics of a thin spherically symmetric gravitating shell in the Reissner-Nordstrom metric of the electrically charged black hole. The energy-momentum tensor of electrically neutral shell is modelled by the perfect fluid with a polytropic equation of state. The motion of a shell is described fully analytically in the particular case of the dust equation of state. We construct the Carter-Penrose diagrams for the global geometry of the eternal black hole, which illustrate all possible types of solutions for moving shell. It is shown that for some specific range of initial parameters there are possible the stable oscillating motion of the shell transferring it consecutively in infinite series of internal universes. We demonstrate also that this oscillating type of motion is possible for an arbitrary polytropic equation of state on the shell.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure

The wave function of a gravitating shell

We have calculated a discrete spectrum and found an exact analytical solution in the form of Meixner polynomials for the wave function of a thin gravitating shell in the Reissner-Nordstrom geometry. We show that there is no extreme state in the quantum spectrum of the gravitating shell, as in the case of extreme black hole.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur

Quantum geometrodynamics for black holes and wormholes

The geometrodynamics of the spherical gravity with a selfgravitating thin dust shell as a source is constructed. The shell Hamiltonian constraint is derived and the corresponding Schroedinger equation is obtained. This equation appeared to be a finite differences equation. Its solutions are required to be analytic functions on the relevant Riemannian surface. The method of finding discrete spectra is suggested based on the analytic properties of the solutions. The large black hole approximation is considered and the discrete spectra for bound states of quantum black holes and wormholes are found. They depend on two quantum numbers and are, in fact, quasicontinuous.Comment: Latex, 32 pages, 5 fig

Symplectic geometries on supermanifolds

Extension of symplectic geometry on manifolds to the supersymmetric case is considered. In the even case it leads to the even symplectic geometry (or, equivalently, to the geometry on supermanifolds endowed with a non-degenerate Poisson bracket) or to the geometry on an even Fedosov supermanifolds. It is proven that in the odd case there are two different scalar symplectic structures (namely, an odd closed differential 2-form and the antibracket) which can be used for construction of symplectic geometries on supermanifolds.Comment: LaTex, 1o pages, LaTex, changed conten

Vacuum decay via Lorentzian wormholes

We speculate about the spacetime description due to the presence of Lorentzian wormholes (handles in spacetime joining two distant regions or other universes) in quantum gravity. The semiclassical rate of production of these Lorentzian wormholes in Reissner-Nordstr\"om spacetimes is calculated as a result of the spontaneous decay of vacuum due to a real tunneling configuration. In the magnetic case it only depends on the field theoretical fine structure constant. We predict that the quantum probability corresponding to the nucleation of such geodesically complete spacetimes should be actually negligible in our physical Universe

Canonical and D-transformations in Theories with Constraints

A class class of transformations in a super phase space (we call them D-transformations) is described, which play in theories with second-class constraints the role of ordinary canonical transformations in theories without constraints.Comment: 16 pages, LaTe

Degree of entanglement as a physically ill-posed problem: The case of entanglement with vacuum

We analyze an example of a photon in superposition of different modes, and ask what is the degree of their entanglement with vacuum. The problem turns out to be ill-posed since we do not know which representation of the algebra of canonical commutation relations (CCR) to choose for field quantization. Once we make a choice, we can solve the question of entanglement unambiguously. So the difficulty is not with mathematics, but with physics of the problem. In order to make the discussion explicit we analyze from this perspective a popular argument based on a photon leaving a beam splitter and interacting with two two-level atoms. We first solve the problem algebraically in Heisenberg picture, without any assumption about the form of representation of CCR. Then we take the $\infty$-representation and show in two ways that in two-mode states the modes are maximally entangled with vacuum, but single-mode states are not entangled. Next we repeat the analysis in terms of the representation of CCR taken from Berezin's book and show that two-mode states do not involve the mode-vacuum entanglement. Finally, we switch to a family of reducible representations of CCR recently investigated in the context of field quantization, and show that the entanglement with vacuum is present even for single-mode states. Still, the degree of entanglement is here difficult to estimate, mainly because there are $N+2$ subsystems, with $N$ unspecified and large.Comment: This paper is basically a reply to quant-ph/0507189 by S. J. van Enk and to the remarks we got from L. Vaidman after our preliminary quant-ph/0507151. Version accepted in Phys. Rev.