Mathematical Aspects of General Relativity

We investigate two Type-IIa Minimally Modified Gravity theories, namely VCDM and Cuscuton theories. We confirm that all acceptable Cuscuton solutions are always solutions for VCDM theory. However, the inverse does not hold. We find that VCDM allows for the existence of exact General Relativity (GR) solutions with or without the presence of matter fields and a cosmological constant. We determine the conditions of existence for such GR-VCDM solutions in terms of the trace of the extrinsic curvature and on the fields which define the VCDM theory. On the other hand, for the Cuscuton theory, we find that the same set of exact GR solutions (such as Schwarzschild and Kerr spacetimes) is not compatible with timelike configurations of the Cuscuton field and therefore cannot be considered as acceptable solutions. Nonetheless, in Cuscuton theory, there could exist solutions which are not the same but close enough to GR solutions. We also show the conditions to determine intrinsic-VCDM solutions, i.e. solutions which differ from GR and do not belong to the Cuscuton model. We finally show that in cosmology a mapping between VCDM and the Cuscuton is possible, for a generic form of the VCDM potential. In particular, we find that for a quadratic potential in VCDM theory, this mapping is well defined giving an effective redefinition of the Planck mass for the cosmological background solutions of both theories.

As gravitational wave astronomy prepares for the first detections of gravitational waves from compact-object binary inspirals, theoretical work is required on the study of (i) gravitational-wave sources, (ii) the signals emitted by those sources, and (iii) the searches for those signals in detector data. This thesis describes work on all three fronts. (i) We discuss intermediate-mass-ratio inspirals (IMRIs) of black holes or neutron stars into intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) that could be detected with Advanced LIGO. We analyze different mechanisms of IMRI formation and compute IMRI event rates of up to tens of events per year for Advanced LIGO. We study the spin evolution of IMBHs that grow through a series of minor mergers. We explore how a deviation of an IMRI's central body from a Kerr black hole influences geodesics, including the possibility of chaotic orbital dynamics. We also address the scientific consequences of extreme-mass-ratio inspiral (EMRI) detections by LISA for astrophysics and general relativity, and the difficulties associated with detecting and analyzing EMRI signals. (ii) We study the periodic standing-wave approximation (PSWA), which can potentially provide accurate waveforms in the last inspiral cycles of a comparable-mass black-hole binary. Using a simple model, we find that the solution to Einstein's equations for inspiraling black holes can be recovered to a high accuracy by the addition a perturbative radiation-reaction field to the standing-wave, noninspiraling solution. (iii) We demonstrate the utility of searching for and analyzing tracks in time-frequency spectrograms of a gravitational-wave signal as a means of estimating the parameters of a massive black-hole binary inspiral, as observed by LISA.

A student-friendly style, over 100 illustrations, and numerous exercises are brought together in this textbook for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students in physics and mathematics. Lewis Ryder develops the theory of general relativity in detail. Covering the core topics of black holes, gravitational radiation, and cosmology, he provides an overview of general relativity and its modern ramifications. The book contains chapters on gravitational radiation, cosmology, and connections between general relativity and the fundamental physics of the microworld. It explains the geometry of curved spaces and contains key solutions of Einstein's equations - the Schwarzschild and Kerr solutions. Mathematical calculations are worked out in detail, so students can develop an intuitive understanding of the subject, as well as learn how to perform calculations. The book also includes topics concerned with the relation between general relativity and other areas of fundamental physics. Password protected solutions for instructors are available at www.cambridge.org/9780521845632.

In the first eleven chapters of this book we have attempted to introduce the reader to string theory as it is presently understood. Our focus now shifts to making contact with more familiar physics. In this chapter we develop some concepts in differential geometry that are useful in understanding general relativity and Yang-Mills theory even in four dimensions, but which are of particular utility in ten-dimensional physics. Our treatment in this chapter is comparatively elementary and aims mostly to develop the minimum material we require in chapters 13 and 14. In chapter 13, we will discuss supergravity theory in ten dimensions, which at least in perturbation theory is the low-energy limit of ten-dimensional superstring theory. In chapter 14, we will discuss some of the important ideas that arise in compactification from ten to four dimensions. The concluding chapters of this book, chapters 15 and 16, are devoted to more specialized mathematical background and more speculative ideas about compactification. Spinors In General Relativity A good place to start our discussion is to think about the coupling of spinors to a gravitational field. This problem is of great importance in string theories in which both fermions and gravity are present, and this alone would justify its consideration here. In addition, thinking about the coupling of spinors to a gravitational field forces us to examine issues whose analogs for Yang-Mills theory we will wish to consider later. The question of coupling spinors to general relativity was considered briefly in chapter 4, in connection with a discussion of two-dimensional supergravity, but here we will be more extensive.

We investigate whether photon ring observations in black hole imaging are able to distinguish between the Kerr black hole in general relativity and alternative black holes that deviate from Kerr. Certain aspects of photon rings have been argued to be robust observables in very-long-baseline interferometry black hole observations which carry imprints of the underlying spacetime. The photon ring shape, as well as its Lyapunov exponent (which encodes the narrowing of successive photon subrings), are detailed probes of the underlying geometry; measurements thereof have been argued to provide a strong null test of general relativity and the Kerr metric. However, a more complicated question is whether such observations of the photon ring properties can distinguish between Kerr and alternative black holes. We provide a first answer to this question by calculating photon rings of the Johannsen, Rasheed-Larsen, and Manko-Novikov black holes. We find that large deviations from Kerr and large observer inclinations are needed to obtain measurable differences in the photon ring shape. In other words, the Kerr photon ring shape appears to be the universal shape even for deviating black holes at low inclinations. On the other hand, the Lyapunov exponent shows more marked variations for deviations from the Kerr metric. Our analysis lays out the groundwork to determine deviations from the Kerr spacetime in photon rings that are potentially detectable by future observing missions.

We report on selected oral contributions to the A2 session “Mathematical relativity and other progress in classical gravity theory” of “The 20th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation (GR20)” in Warsaw.

A few years ago, in my review of Sean Carroll's book in Classical and Quantum Gravity [1], I wrote that while the 1970s was the decade of Weinberg [2] and Misner, Thorne and Wheeler [3], and while the eighties was the decade of Schutz [4] and Wald [5], the 2000s was clearly the decade of Hartle [6] and Carroll [7]. In my opinion, these books continue to stand out in the surprisingly dense crowd of introductory textbooks on general relativity. At the dawn of this new decade I look forward to see what fresh pedagogical insights will be produced next, and who will be revealed as the winners of the 2010s. It is, of course, much too early to tell, but Schutz is back, and he will set the standard just as he did back in 1985.

We give an exact solution of the gravitational and electromagnetic field equations with a charged rotating source in new general relativity. The solution has three parameters Q, h and a, and it gives a charged Kerr metric space-time. The parallel vector fields and the electromagnetic vector potential are axially symmetric. In this space-time, we cannot discriminate new general relativity from general relativity, so far as scalar, the Dirac and the Yang-Mills fields and macroscopic bodies are used as probes. The space-time does not have singularities at all, although it has an “effective singularity”. Two kinds of Reissner-Nordström metric solutions, one is our solution with h = 0 and the other is a solution given by Hayashi and Shirafuji, are physically equivalent with each other. Nevertheless, these are markedly different from each other with regard to the asymptotic behavior of the torsion tensor for r →∞ and the space-time singularities.

While the physical properties of the gravitational field in the radiation regime are reasonably well understood, several mathematical questions remain unanswered. The question here is that of existence and properties of gravitational fields with asymptotic behavior compatible with existence of gravitational radiation. A framework to study those questions has been proposed by R. Penrose (R. Penrose, “Zero rest-mass fields including gravitation”, Proc. Roy. Soc. London A284 (1965), 159-203), and developed by H. Friedrich (H. Friedrich, “Cauchy problem for the conformal vacuum field equations in general relativity”, Commun. Math. Phys. 91 (1983), 445-472.), (H. Friedrich, “On the existence of n-geodesically complete or future complete solutions of Einstein's field equations with smooth asymptotic structure”, Commun. Math. Phys. 107 (1986), 587-609.), (-,“On the global existence and the asymptotic behavior of solutions to the Einstein-Maxwell-Yang-Mills equations”, Jour. Diff. Geom. 34 (1991), 275-345) using conformal completions techniques. In this conformal approach one has to 1) construct initial data, which satisfy the general relativistic constraint equations, with appropriate behavior near the conformal boundary, and 2) show a local (and perhaps also a global) existence theorem for the associated evolution problem. In this context solutions of the constraint equations can be found by solving a nonlinear elliptic system of equations, one of which resembles the Yamabe equation (and coincides with this equation in some cases), with the system degenerating near the conformal boundary. In the first part of the talk I (PTC) will describe the existence and boundary regularity results about this system obtained some years ago in collaboration with Helmut Friedrich and Lars Andersson. Some new applications of those techniques are also presented. In the second part of the talk I will describe some new results, obtained in collaboration with Olivier Lengard, concerning the evolution problem.

Must a theory of quantum gravity have some truth to it if it can recover general relativity in some limit of the theory? This paper answers this question in the negative by indicating that general relativity is multiply realizable in quantum gravity. The argument is inspired by spacetime functionalism - multiple realizability being a central tenet of functionalism - and proceeds via three case studies: induced gravity, thermodynamic gravity, and entanglement gravity. In these, general relativity in the form of the Einstein field equations can be recovered from elements that are either manifestly multiply realizable or at least of the generic nature that is suggestive of functions. If general relativity, as argued here, can inherit this multiple realizability, then a theory of quantum gravity can recover general relativity while being completely wrong about the posited microstructure. As a consequence, the recovery of general relativity cannot serve as the ultimate arbiter that decides which theory of quantum gravity that is worthy of pursuit, even though it is of course not irrelevant either qua quantum gravity. Thus, the recovery of general relativity in string theory, for instance, does not guarantee that the stringy account of the world is on the right track; despite sentiments to the contrary among string theorists.

The equations of relativistic, perfect-fluid hydrodynamics are cast in Eulerian form using six scalar fields, each of which has an equation of evolution. These equations determine the motion of the fluid through the equation Uʋ=µ-1 (o,ʋ + αβ,ʋ + ƟS,ʋ). Einstein's equations and the velocity-potential hydrodynamical equations follow from a variational principle whose action is I = (R + 16π p) (-g)1/2 d4x, where R is the scalar curvature of spacetime and p is the pressure of the fluid. These equations are also cast into Hamiltonian form, with Hamiltonian density –T00 (-goo)-1/2. The second variation of the action is used as the Lagrangian governing the evolution of small perturbations of differentially rotating stellar models. In Newtonian gravity this leads to linear dynamical stability criteria already known. In general relativity it leads to a new sufficient condition for the stability of such models against arbitrary perturbations. By introducing three scalar fields defined by ρ ᵴ = ∇ λ + ∇ x(x i + ∇ xɣ i ) (where ᵴ is the vector displacement of the perturbed fluid element, ρ is the mass-density, and i , is an arbitrary vector), the Newtonian stability criteria are greatly simplified for the purpose of practical applications. The relativistic stability criterion is not yet in a form that permits practical calculations, but ways to place it in such a form are discussed.

Experts Plebański and Krasiński provide a thorough introduction to the tools of general relativity and relativistic cosmology. Assuming familiarity with advanced calculus, classical mechanics, electrodynamics and special relativity, the text begins with a short course on differential geometry, taking a unique top-down approach. Starting with general manifolds on which only tensors are defined, the covariant derivative and affine connection are introduced before moving on to geodesics and curvature. Only then is the metric tensor and the (pseudo)-Riemannian geometry introduced, specialising the general results to this case. The main text describes relativity as a physical theory, with applications to astrophysics and cosmology. It takes the reader beyond traditional courses on relativity through in-depth descriptions of inhomogeneous cosmological models and the Kerr metric. Emphasis is given to complete and clear derivations of the results, enabling readers to access research articles published in relativity journals.

Using gravitational wave observations to search for deviations from general relativity (GR) in the strong-gravity regime has become an important research direction. One aspect of the strong gravity modifications to GR is parity violation. Chern Simons (CS) gravity is one of the most frequently studied parity-violating models of strong gravity. CS gravity is indistinguishable from GR for all conformally flat space-times and for space-times that possess a maximally symmetric two-dimensional subspace. Also, it is known that the Kerr black hole is not a solution for CS gravity. At the same time, the only rotating solution available in the literature for dynamical CS (DCS) gravity is the slow-rotating case most accurately known to quadratic order in spin. In this work, for the slow-rotating case (accurate to first order in spin), we derive the linear perturbation equations governing the metric and the DCS field accurate to linear order in spin and quadratic order in the CS coupling parameter ($\ensuremath{\alpha}$) and obtain the quasinormal mode (QNM) frequencies. After confirming the recent results of Wagle et al. arXiv:2103.09913, we find an additional contribution to the eigenfrequency correction at the leading perturbative order of ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}^{2}$. Unlike Wagle et al., we also find corrections to frequencies in the polar sector. We compute these extra corrections by evaluating the expectation values of the perturbative potential on unperturbed QNM wave functions along a contour deformed into the complex-$r$ plane. For $\ensuremath{\alpha}=0.1{M}^{2}$, we obtain the ratio of the imaginary parts of the DCS correction to the GR correction in the first QNM frequency (in the polar sector) to be 0.263 implying significant change. For the (2, 2) mode, the DCS corrections make imaginary part of the first QNM of the fundamental mode less negative, thereby decreasing the decay rate. Our results, along with future gravitational wave observations, can be used as a test for DCS gravity and to further constrain the CS coupling parameters.

Starting from Newton's gravitational theory, we give a general introduction into the spherically symmetric solution of Einstein's vacuum field equation, the Schwarzschild(–Droste) solution, and into one specific stationary axially symmetric solution, the Kerr solution. The Schwarzschild solution is unique and its metric can be interpreted as the exterior gravitational field of a spherically symmetric mass. The Kerr solution is only unique if the multipole moments of its mass and its angular momentum take on prescribed values. Its metric can be interpreted as the exterior gravitational field of a suitably rotating mass distribution. Both solutions describe objects exhibiting an event horizon, a frontier of no return. The corresponding notion of a black hole is explained to some extent. Eventually, we present some generalizations of the Kerr solution.

Modified General Relativity (MGR) is the natural extension of General Relativity (GR). MGR explicitly uses the smooth regular line element vector field [Formula: see text], which exists in all Lorentzian spacetimes, to construct a connection-independent symmetric tensor that represents the energy–momentum of the gravitational field. It solves the problem of the nonlocalization of gravitational energy–momentum in GR, preserves the ontology of the Einstein equation, and maintains the equivalence principle. The line element field provides MGR with the extra freedom required to describe dark energy and dark matter. An extended Schwarzschild solution for the matter-free Einstein equation of MGR is developed, from which the Tully–Fisher relation is derived, and the gravitational energy density is calculated. The mass of the invisible matter halo of galaxy NGC 3198 calculated with MGR is identical to the result obtained from GR using a dark matter profile. Although dark matter in MGR is described geometrically, it has an equivalent representation as a particle with the property of a vector boson or a pair of fermions; the geometry of spacetime and the quantum nature of matter are linked together by the unit line element covectors that belong to both the Lorentzian metric and the spin-1 Klein–Gordon wave equation. The three classic tests of GR provide a comparison of the theories in the solar system and several parts of the cosmos. MGR provides the flexibility to describe inflation after the Big Bang and galactic anisotropies.