Tunneling through bridges: Bohmian non-locality from higher-derivative gravity

The central conceptual idea of the contemporary theory of general relativity--or geometrodynamics--is the identification of matter with the structure of space-time. No entities foreign to space-time, like masses, charges, or independent fields are needed, and physics thus becomes identical with the geometry of space-time. This idea implies a philosophical description of the universe that is monistic and organic, characterized by an all-encompassing interdependence of events. Moreover, it is an idea with deep roots in the history of philosophy. For these reasons, the author of this important study strives to clarify these philosophical and historical issues before proceeding to the details of the physical theory of geometrodynamics.Graves develops a general philosophical framework of realism, asserting that scientific theories have ontological import in determining the real structure of the world, and in particular that models play a central role as ontological hypotheses. He introduces two factors, the empiricist error and the logical errors that he feels have contributed to past misinterpretations of the nature of reality that were based on general relativity theory.The historic continuities that join the metaphysics of Plato and Descartes with the monistic, organic nature of geometrodynamics are contrasted with the latter's radical break with the Newtonian or atomistic worldview which is predicated on a basic separation between matter and space. The Newtonian independence and distinctness of objects is at the polar extreme from their Einsteinian interdependence and continuity.In discussing the physical principles of relativity, the author begins with a review of Einstein's original formulation (classical general relativity) and the significance of its basic assumptions and equations. He then presents the remarkable recent developments in geometrodynamics, which allow the program of identifying matter with space-time to be carried further than even Einstein suspected possible. The surprising discovery that electromagnetism can be incorporated into geometrodynamics without modifying Einstein's original equations appears to be formally correct, but reliance on multiply-connected topologies (wormholes) to represent charge raises various unresolved questions.Graves concludes that the present language of physics, like that of everyday life, is based on concepts of independence and separation, and that a wholly new language may be needed to describe the world in terms of geometrodynamics, in which space-time appears as the only substance, with curvatures as its attributes, and in which objects have no absolute individuality, distinctness, or location.

One of the striking features of general relativity is that the Einstein equation is implied by the Clausius relation imposed on a small patch of locally constructed causal horizon. Extension of this thermodynamic derivation of the field equation to more general theories of gravity has been attempted many times in the last two decades. In particular, equations of motion for minimally coupled higher curvature theories of gravity, but without the derivatives of curvature, have previously been derived using a thermodynamic reasoning. In that derivation the horizon slices were endowed with an entropy density whose form resembles that of the Noether charge for diffeomorphisms, and was dubbed the Noetheresque entropy. In this paper, we propose a new entropy density, closely related to the Noetheresque form, such that the field equation of any diffeomorphism invariant metric theory of gravity can be derived by imposing the Clausius relation on a small patch of local causal horizon.

In general relativity, traversable wormholes are possible provided they do not represent shortcuts in the spacetime. Einstein equations, together with the achronal averaged null energy condition, demand to take longer for an observer to go through the wormhole than through the ambient space. This forbids wormholes connecting two distant regions in the space. The situation is different when higher-curvature corrections are considered. Here, we construct a traversable wormhole solution connecting two asymptotically flat regions, otherwise disconnected. This geometry is an electro-vacuum solution to Lovelock theory of gravity coupled to an Abelian gauge field. The electric flux suffices to support the wormhole throat and to stabilize the solution. In fact, we show that, in contrast to other wormhole solutions previously found in this theory, the one constructed here turns out to be stable under scalar perturbations. We also consider wormholes in AdS. We present a protection argument showing that, while stable traversable wormholes connecting two asymptotically locally AdS$_5$ spaces do exist in the higher-curvature theory, the region of the parameter space where such solutions are admitted lies outside the causality bounds coming from AdS/CFT.

A traversable wormhole, which is a class of wormholes in general relativity (GR), was proposed by Morris and Thorne in 1988. However, its existence requires the exotic matter violating the energy conditions. This thesis examines the wormhole solutions in the theory of massive gravity, focusing only on the de Rham, Gabadadze and Tolley (dRGT) theory of massive gravity which is the nonlinear massive gravity without ghost and quantify the wormhole solutions. We construct the wormhole solutions in context of the modified GR, investigate their stability, and examine the conditions of the exotic matter. Two methods for wormhole constructions are applied i.e., the Lorentzian traversable and thin-shell wormholes. We found that the wormholes in dRGT massive gravity require the exotic matter only near their throats not spreading all the Universe like in GR.

This thesis presents recent research into analytic topics in the classical theory of General Relativity. It is a thesis in two parts. The first part features investigations into the spectrum of perturbed, rotating black holes. These include the study of near horizon perturbations, leading to a new generic frequency mode for black hole ringdown; an treatment of high frequency waves using WKB methods for Kerr black holes; and the discovery of a bifurcation of the quasinormal mode spectrum of rapidly rotating black holes. These results represent new discoveries in the field of black hole perturbation theory, and rely on additional approximations to the linearized field equations around the background black hole. The second part of this thesis presents a recently developed method for the visualization of curved spacetimes, using field lines called the tendex and vortex lines of the spacetime. The works presented here both introduce these visualization techniques, and explore them in simple situations. These include the visualization of asymptotic gravitational radiation; weak gravity situations with and without radiation; stationary black hole spacetimes; and some preliminary study into numerically simulated black hole mergers. The second part of thesis culminates in the investigation of perturbed black holes using these field line methods, which have uncovered new insights into the dynamics of curved spacetime around black holes.

The physical meaning of the Planck length (ell _{P}) is investigated in the framework of the unconstrained synchronous variational formulation of classical general relativity (GR). This theoretical setting permits the establishment of manifestly-covariant Lagrangian and Hamiltonian theories for the Einstein field equations of the continuum gravitational field. It is shown that such a formulation is distinguished by the existence of a novel variational contribution expressed by an infinite series summation of suitable 4-scalar terms in which the coupling coefficients are even powers of the Planck length. However, the requirement of realization of a classical GR Hamiltonian theory places stringent constraints on the admissible Planck-length power terms to be retained. In fact, excluding the trivial gauge constant, it is proved that only the Oleft( ell _{P}^{0}right) contribution of the series is ultimately permitted, namely the unique one which is independent of ell _{P}. Therefore, the Planck length is effectively not allowed to appear at the classical level for consistency with the Hamiltonian principle. This places important consequences on the mathematical establishment of the corresponding canonical quantum gravity theory, which is then found to be correct through Oleft( ell _{P}^{2}right) . Additional implications concern the physical significance of related quantum momenta and their meaning in the semi-classical limit, as well as the role of the Planck length in the same quantum-gravity realm.

As the structures in our Universe are mapped out on ever larger scales, and with increasing detail, the use of inhomogeneous models is becoming an essential tool for analyzing and understanding them. This book reviews a number of important developments in the application of inhomogeneous solutions of Einstein's field equations to cosmology. It shows how inhomogeneous models can be employed to study the evolution of structures such as galaxy clusters and galaxies with central black holes, and to account for cosmological observations like supernovae dimming, the cosmic microwave background, baryon acoustic oscillations or the dependence of the Hubble parameter on redshift within classical general relativity. Whatever `dark matter' and `dark energy' turn out to be, inhomogeneities exist on many scales and need to be investigated with all appropriate methods. This book is of great value to all astrophysicists and researchers working in cosmology, from graduate students to academic researchers.

Wormhole solutions in classical general relativity are unstable and hence non traversable. Morris and Thorne discovered a traversable wormhole solution that required the energy momentum tensor of matter sources to violate various energy conditions and are out of the purview of the standard model of particle physics. The search for traversable wormhole solutions in modified theories of gravity has been of significant interest in the decades after Morris and Thorne first published their results as such violations may be avoided in such theories. This work comprehensively reviews traversable wormhole solutions in higher dimensional extensions of general relativity that satisfy the various energy conditions with an in depth look at the matter sources and the various constraints on the parameters of the theories to make the energy momentum of the matter sources respect the energy conditions.

The metric condition and the symmetry of affine connexions are both a priori assumed by General Relativity without much justification. To pro~ide a basis for this, we present a new approach to spacetime structure, taking as probes elementary particles of spin 1/2, baryons and leptons including neutrinos which define 'neutrino null cone'. Thus our ap· proach is much finer than the usual ones using classical particles and quite opposite to spinor formulation of General Relativity as it stands. Assuming the most general form of metric spinor and spinor connexion which includes two gauge fields, we mathematically deduce (1) the metric tensor and (2) the semimetric condition. By virtue of the Eotvos· type null experiments, we find that fermion-number gauge field interacts with matter too weakly to be detected. Furthermore, it it shown that scale gauge field neither couples to the elementary particles, nor the electromagnetic field. We are thus led to the Riemann geometry with torsion, first introduced by Cartan independently of spin concept. There is no evidence whatsoever to exclude torsion. We conclude, therefore, that torsion must seriously be taken into account, in particular when and where classical General Relativity seems to break down.

We compute the next-to-leading order term in the scattering waveform of uncharged black holes in classical general relativity and of half-BPS black holes in mathcal{N} = 8 supergravity. We propose criteria, generalizing explicit calculations at next-to-leading order, for determining the terms in amplitudes that contribute to local observables. For general relativity, we construct the relevant classical integrand through generalized unitarity in two distinct ways, (1) in a heavy-particle effective theory and (2) in general relativity minimally-coupled to scalar fields. With a suitable prescription for the matter propagator in the former, we find agreement between the two methods, thus demonstrating the absence of interference of quantum and classically-singular contributions. The classical mathcal{N} = 8 integrand for massive scalar fields is constructed through dimensional reduction of the known five-point one-loop integrand. Our calculation exhibits novel features compared to conservative calculations and inclusive observables, such as the appearance of master integrals with intersecting matter lines and the appearance of a classical infrared divergence whose absence from classical observables requires a suitable definition of the retarded time.

The big bang and the Schwarzschild singularities are space-like. They are generally regarded as the "final frontiers" at which space-time ends and general relativity breaks down. We review the status of such space-like singularities from three increasingly more general perspectives. They are provided by (i) A reformulation of classical general relativity motivated by the Belinskii, Khalatnikov, Lifshitz conjecture on the behavior of the gravitational field near space-like singularities; (ii) The use of test quantum fields to probe the nature of these singularities; and, (iii) An analysis of the fate of these singularities in loop quantum gravity due to quantum geometry effects. At all three levels singularities turn out to be less menacing than one might a priori expect from classical general relativity. Our goal is to present an overview of the emerging conceptual picture and suggest lines for further work. In line with the \emph{Introduction to Current Research} theme, we have made an attempt to make it easily accessible to all researchers in gravitational physics.

In this brief review, we present the results of the fractional differential approach in cosmology in the context of the exact models of cosmological accelerated expansion obtained by several authors to date. Most of these studies are devoted to the problem of introducing fractional derivatives or fractional integrals into the classical General Relativity (GR). There are several observational and theoretical motivations to investigate the modified or alternative theories of GR. Among other things, we cover General Relativity modified by a phenomenological approach dealing with fractional calculus. At the same time, a sufficiently large number of exact solutions of the cosmological equations modified by this approach were obtained. Some of these models may be especially relevant in the light of solving the problem of late accelerated expansion of the Universe. These studies are largely motivated by rapid progress in the field of observational cosmology that now allows, for the first time, precision tests of fundamental physics on the scale of the observable Universe. The purpose of this review is to provide a reference tool for researchers and students in cosmology and gravitational physics, as well as a self-contained, comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to the subject as a whole.

Seven new solutions to the interior static and spherically symmetric Einstein's field equations (EFE) are found and investigated. These new solutions are a generalisation of the quadratic density fall-off profile of the Tolman VII solution. The generalisation involves the addition of anisotropic pressures and electric charge to the density profile. Of these new solutions three are found to obey all the necessary conditions of physical acceptability, including linear stability under radial perturbations, and causality of the speed of pressure waves inside the object. Additionally an equation of state can be found for all the physically viable solutions. The generalised pulsation equation for interior solutions to the EFE that include both electric charge and pressure anisotropy is derived and used to determine the stability of the solutions. However the pulsation equation found is general and can be used for all new solutions that contain these ingredients.

We investigate the Church–Kalmar–Kreisel–Turing theses theoretical concerning (necessary) limitations of future computers and of deductive sciences, in view of recent results of classical general relativity theory. We argue that (i) there are several distinguished Church–Turing-type theses (not only one) and (ii) validity of some of these theses depend on the background physical theory we choose to use. In particular, if we choose classical general relativity theory as our background theory, then the above-mentioned limitations (predicted by these theses) become no more necessary, hence certain forms of the Church–Turing thesis cease to be valid (in general relativity). (For other choices of the background theory the answer might be different.) We also look at various “obstacles” to computing a nonrecursive function (by relying on relativistic phenomena) published in the literature and show that they can be avoided (by improving the “design” of our future computer). We also ask ourselves, how all this reflects on the arithmetical hierarchy and the analytical hierarchy of uncomputable functions.

We numerically study water wave packets on a spatially varying counter-current in the presence of surface tension. Depending on the details of the velocity profile, we show that traversable and bi-directional analogue wormholes exist in fluid mechanics. The limitations on traversability of wormholes in general relativity are absent here because of the dispersion of water waves and the ability to form flow profiles that are not solutions of Einstein's equations. We observe that negative energy can be trapped between analogue horizons forming a LASER-like cavity. Six horizons are involved in the trapping cavity because of the existence of two dispersive scales, in contrast to previous treatments which considered two horizons and one dispersive scale.