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Delhom, A., Olmo, G. J., & Singh, P. (2023). A diffeomorphism invariant family of metric-affine actions for loop cosmologies. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 06(6), 059–21pp.
Abstract: In loop quantum cosmology (LQC) the big bang singularity is generically resolved by a big bounce. This feature holds even when modified quantization prescriptions of the Hamiltonian constraint are used such as in mLQC-I and mLQC-II. While the later describes an effective description qualitatively similar to that of standard LQC, the former describes an asymmetric evolution with an emergent Planckian de-Sitter pre-bounce phase even in the absence of a potential. We consider the potential relation of these canonically quantized non-singular models with effective actions based on a geometric description. We find a 3-parameter family of metric-affine f (R) theories which accurately approximate the effective dynamics of LQC and mLQC-II in all regimes and mLQC-I in the post-bounce phase. Two of the parameters are fixed by enforcing equivalence at the bounce, and the background evolution of the relevant observables can be fitted with only one free parameter. It is seen that the non-perturbative effects of these loop cosmologies are universally encoded by a logarithmic correction that only depends on the bounce curvature of the model. In addition, we find that the best fit value of the free parameter can be very approximately written in terms of fundamental parameters of the underlying quantum description for the three models. The values of the best fits can be written in terms of the bounce density in a simple manner, and the values for each model are related to one another by a proportionality relation involving only the Barbero-Immirzi parameter.
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Olmo, G. J., Rosa, J. L., Rubiera-Garcia, D., & Saez-Chillon Gomez, D. (2023). Shadows and photon rings of regular black holes and geonic horizonless compact objects. Class. Quantum Gravity, 40(17), 174002–37pp.
Abstract: The optical appearance of a body compact enough to feature an unstable bound orbit, when surrounded by an accretion disk, is expected to be dominated by a luminous ring of radiation enclosing a central brightness depression typically known as the shadow. Despite observational limitations, the rough details of this picture have been now confirmed by the results of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration on the imaging of the M87 and Milky Way supermassive central objects. However, the precise characterization of both features-ring and shadow-depends on the interaction between the background geometry and the accretion disk, thus being a fertile playground to test our theories on the nature of compact objects and the gravitational field itself in the strong-field regime. In this work we use both features in order to test a continuous family of solutions interpolating between regular black holes and horizonless compact objects, which arise within the Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld theory of gravity, a viable extension of Einstein's general relativity (GR). To this end we consider seven distinctive classes of such configurations (five black holes and two traversable wormholes) and study their optical appearances under illumination by a geometrically and optically thin accretion disk, emitting monochromatically with three analytic intensity profiles previously suggested in the literature. We build such images and consider the sub-ring structure created by light rays crossing the disk more than once and existing on top of the main ring of radiation. We discuss in detail the modifications as compared to their GR counterparts, the Lyapunov exponents of unstable nearly-bound orbits, as well as the differences between black hole and traversable wormholes for the three intensity profiles. In addition we use the claim by the EHT Collaboration on the radius of the bright ring acting (under proper calibrations) as a proxy for the radius of the shadow itself to explore the parameter space of our solutions compatible with such a result.
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Bombacigno, F., Moretti, F., Boudet, S., & Olmo, G. J. (2023). Landau damping for gravitational waves in parity-violating theories. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 02(2), 009–29pp.
Abstract: We discuss how tensor polarizations of gravitational waves can suffer Landau damping in the presence of velocity birefringence, when parity symmetry is explicitly broken. In particular, we analyze the role of the Nieh-Yan and Chern-Simons terms in modified theories of gravity, showing how the gravitational perturbation in collisionless media can be characterized by a subluminal phase velocity, circumventing the well-known results of General Relativity and allowing for the appearance of the kinematic damping. We investigate in detail the connection between the thermodynamic properties of the medium, such as temperature and mass of the particles interacting with the gravitational wave, and the parameters ruling the parity violating terms of the models. In this respect, we outline how the dispersion relations can give rise in each model to different regions of the wavenumber space, where the phase velocity is subluminal, superluminal or does not exist. Quantitative estimates on the considered models indicate that the phenomenon of Landau damping is not detectable given the sensitivity of present-day instruments.
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Magalhaes, R. B., Maso-Ferrando, A., Olmo, G. J., & Crispino, L. C. B. (2023). Asymmetric wormholes in Palatini f (R) gravity: Energy conditions, absorption, and quasibound states. Phys. Rev. D, 108(2), 024063–20pp.
Abstract: We investigate the scalar absorption spectrum of wormhole solutions constructed via the recently developed thin-shell formalism for Palatini f(R) gravity. Such wormholes come from the matching of two Reissner-Nordstrom spacetimes at a timelike hypersurface (shell), which, according to the junction conditions in Palatini f(R), can be stable and have either positive or negative energy density. In particular, we identified a new physically interesting configuration made out of two overcharged Reissner-Nordstrom spacetimes, whose absorption profile departs from that of black holes and other previously considered wormholes in the whole range of frequencies. Unlike in symmetric wormhole solutions, the asymmetry of the effective potential causes the dilution of the resonances associated to the quasibound states for the high -frequency regime. Therefore, slight asymmetries in wormhole space-times could have a dramatic impact on the observable features associated to resonant states.
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Guerrero, M., Olmo, G. J., & Rubiera-Garcia, D. (2023). Geodesic completeness of effective null geodesics in regular space-times with non-linear electrodynamics. Eur. Phys. J. C, 83(9), 785–8pp.
Abstract: We study the completeness of light trajectories in certain spherically symmetric regular geometries found in Palatini theories of gravity threaded by non-linear (electromagnetic) fields, which makes their propagation to happen along geodesics of an effective metric. Two types of geodesic restoration mechanisms are employed: by pushing the focal point to infinite affine distance, thus unreachable in finite time by any sets of geodesics, or by the presence of a defocusing surface associated to the development of a wormhole throat. We discuss several examples of such geometries to conclude the completeness of all such effective paths. Our results are of interest both for the finding of singularity-free solutions and for the analysis of their optical appearances e.g. in shadow observations.
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