Foffa, S., Sturani, R., & Torres Bobadilla, W. J. (2021). Efficient resummation of high post-Newtonian contributions to the binding energy. J. High Energy Phys., 02(2), 165–18pp.
Abstract: A factorisation property of Feynman diagrams in the context the Effective Field Theory approach to the compact binary problem has been recently employed to efficiently determine the static sector of the potential at fifth post-Newtonian (5PN) order. We extend this procedure to the case of non-static diagrams and we use it to fix, by means of elementary algebraic manipulations, the value of more than one thousand diagrams at 5PN order, that is a substantial fraction of the diagrams needed to fully determine the dynamics at 5PN. This procedure addresses the redundancy problem that plagues the computation of the binding energy with respect to more “efficient” observables like the scattering angle, thus making the EFT approach in harmonic gauge at least as scalable as the others methods.
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Martinelli, M., Scarcella, F., Hogg, N. B., Kavanagh, B. J., Gaggero, D., & Fleury, P. (2022). Dancing in the dark: detecting a population of distant primordial black holes. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 08(8), 006–47pp.
Abstract: Primordial black holes (PBHs) are compact objects proposed to have formed in the early Universe from the collapse of small-scale over-densities. Their existence may be detected from the observation of gravitational waves (GWs) emitted by PBH mergers, if the signals can be distinguished from those produced by the merging of astrophysical black holes. In this work, we forecast the capability of the Einstein Telescope, a proposed third-generation GW observatory, to identify and measure the abundance of a subdominant population of distant PBHs, using the difference in the redshift evolution of the merger rate of the two populations as our discriminant. We carefully model the merger rates and generate realistic mock catalogues of the luminosity distances and errors that would be obtained from GW signals observed by the Einstein Telescope. We use two independent statistical methods to analyse the mock data, finding that, with our more powerful, likelihood-based method, PBH abundances as small as fPBH approximate to 7 x 10(-6) ( fPBH approximate to 2 x 10(-6)) would be distinguishable from f(PBH) = 0 at the level of 3 sigma with a one year (ten year) observing run of the Einstein Telescope. Our mock data generation code, darksirens, is fast, easily extendable and publicly available on GitLab.
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De Romeri, V., Martinez-Mirave, P., & Tortola, M. (2021). Signatures of primordial black hole dark matter at DUNE and THEIA. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 10(10), 051–21pp.
Abstract: Primordial black holes (PBHs) are a potential dark matter candidate whose masses can span over many orders of magnitude. If they have masses in the 10(15)-10(17) g range, they can emit sizeable fluxes of MeV neutrinos through evaporation via Hawking radiation. We explore the possibility of detecting light (non-)rotating PBHs with future neutrino experiments. We focus on two next generation facilities: the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) and THEIA. We simulate the expected event spectra at both experiments assuming different PBH mass distributions and spins, and we extract the expected 95% C.L. sensitivities to these scenarios. Our analysis shows that future neutrino experiments like DUNE and THEIA will be able to set competitive constraints on PBH dark matter, thus providing complementary probes in a part of the PBH parameter space currently constrained mainly by photon data.
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Afonso, V. I., Mora-Perez, G., Olmo, G. J., Orazi, E., & Rubiera-Garcia, D. (2022). An infinite class of exact rotating black hole metrics of modified gravity. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 03(3), 052–14pp.
Abstract: We build an infinite class of exact axisymmetric solutions of a metric-affine gravity theory, namely, Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld gravity, coupled to an anisotropic fluid as a matter source. The solution-generating method employed is not unique of this theory but can be extended to other Ricci-Based Gravity theories (RBGs), a class of theories built out of contractions of the Ricci tensor with the metric. This method exploits a correspondence between the space of solutions of General Relativity and that of RBGs, and is independent of the symmetries of the problem. For the particular case in which the fluid is identified with non-linear electromagnetic fields we explicitly derive the corresponding axisymmetric solutions. Finally, we use this result to work out the counterpart of the Kerr-Newman black hole when Maxwell electrodynamics is set on the metric-affine side. Our results open up an exciting new avenue for testing new gravitational phenomenology in the fields of gravitational waves and shadows out of rotating black holes.
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Alencar, G., Estrada, M., Muniz, C. R., & Olmo, G. J. (2023). Dymnikova GUP-corrected black holes. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 11(11), 100–23pp.
Abstract: We consider the impact of Generalized Uncertainty Principle (GUP) effects on the Dymnikova regular black hole. The minimum length scale introduced by the GUP modifies the energy density associated with the gravitational source, referred to as the Dymnikova vacuum, based on its analogy with the gravitational counterpart of the Schwinger effect. We present an approximated analytical solution (together with exact numerical results for comparison) that encompasses a wide range of black hole sizes, whose properties crucially depend on the ratio between the de Sitter core radius and the GUP scale. The emergence of a wormhole inside the de Sitter core in the innermost region of the object is one of the most relevant features of this family of solutions. Our findings demonstrate that these solutions remain singularity free, confirming the robustness of the Dymnikova regular black hole under GUP corrections. Regarding energy conditions, we find that the violation of the strong, weak, and null energy conditions which is characteristic of the pure Dymnikova case does not occur at Planckian scales in the GUP corrected solution. This contrast suggests a departure from conventional expectations and highlights the influence of quantum corrections and the GUP in modifying the energy conditions near the Planck scale.
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Boudet, S., Bombacigno, F., Olmo, G. J., & Porfirio, P. (2022). Quasinormal modes of Schwarzschild black holes in projective invariant Chern-Simons modified gravity. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 05(5), 032–29pp.
Abstract: We generalize the Chern-Simons modified gravity to the metric-affine case and impose projective invariance by supplementing the Pontryagin density with homothetic curvature terms which do not spoil topologicity. The latter is then broken by promoting the coupling of the Chern-Simons term to a (pseudo)-scalar field. The solutions for torsion and nonmetricity are derived perturbatively, showing that they can be iteratively obtained from the background fields. This allows us to describe the dynamics for the metric and the scalar field perturbations in a self-consistent way, and we apply the formalism to the study of quasi normal modes in a Schwarzschild black hole background. Unlike in the metric formulation of this theory, we show that the scalar field is endowed with dynamics even in the absence of its kinetic term in the action. Finally, using numerical methods we compute the quasinormal frequencies and characterize the late-time power law tails for scalar and metric perturbations, comparing the results with the outcomes of the purely metric approach.
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Olmo, G. J., Rubiera-Garcia, D., & Sanchez-Puente, A. (2018). Accelerated observers and the notion of singular spacetime. Class. Quantum Gravity, 35(5), 055010–18pp.
Abstract: Geodesic completeness is typically regarded as a basic criterion to determine whether a given spacetime is regular or singular. However, the principle of general covariance does not privilege any family of observers over the others and, therefore, observers with arbitrary motions should be able to provide a complete physical description of the world. This suggests that in a regular spacetime, all physically acceptable observers should have complete paths. In this work we explore this idea by studying the motion of accelerated observers in spherically symmetric spacetimes and illustrate it by considering two geodesically complete black hole spacetimes recently described in the literature. We show that for bound and locally unbound accelerations, the paths of accelerated test particles are complete, providing further support to the regularity of such spacetimes.
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Guerrero, M., Olmo, G. J., Rubiera-Garcia, D., & Saez-Chillon Gomez, D. (2021). Shadows and optical appearance of black bounces illuminated by a thin accretion disk. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 08(8), 036–19pp.
Abstract: We study the light rings and shadows of an uniparametric family of spherically symmetric geometries interpolating between the Schwarzschild solution, a regular black hole, and a traversable wormhole, and dubbed as black bounces, all of them sharing the same critical impact parameter. We consider the ray-tracing method in order to study the impact parameter regions corresponding to the direct, lensed, and photon ring emissions, finding a broadening of all these regions for black bounce solutions as compared to the Schwarzschild one. Using this, we determine the optical appearance of black bounces when illuminated by three standard toy models of optically and geometrically thin accretion disks viewed in face-on orientation.
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Boudet, S., Bombacigno, F., Moretti, F., & Olmo, G. J. (2023). Torsional birefringence in metric-affine Chern-Simons gravity: gravitational waves in late-time cosmology. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 01(1), 026–28pp.
Abstract: In the context of the metric-affine Chern-Simons gravity endowed with projective invariance, we derive analytical solutions for torsion and nonmetricity in the homogeneous and isotropic cosmological case, described by a flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker metric. We discuss in some details the general properties of the cosmological solutions in the presence of a perfect fluid, such as the dynamical stability and the emergence of big bounce points, and we examine the structure of some specific solutions reproducing de Sitter and power law behaviours for the scale factor. Then, we focus on first-order perturbations in the de Sitter scenario, and we study the propagation of gravitational waves in the adiabatic limit, looking at tensor and scalar polarizations. In particular, we find that metric tensor modes couple to torsion tensor components, leading to the appearance, as in the metric version of Chern-Simons gravity, of birefringence, characterized by different dispersion relations for the left and right circularized polarization states. As a result, the purely tensor part of torsion propagates like a wave, while nonmetricity decouples and behaves like a harmonic oscillator. Finally, we discuss scalar modes, outlining as they decay exponentially in time and do not propagate.
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Balbinot, R., & Fabbri, A. (2024). The Unruh Vacuum and the “In-Vacuum” in Reissner-Nordström Spacetime. Universe, 10(1), 18–14pp.
Abstract: The Unruh vacuum is widely used as a quantum state to describe black hole evaporation since, near the horizon, it reproduces the physical state of a quantum field, the so-called “in-vacuum”, in the case where a black hole is formed by gravitational collapse. We examine the relation between these two quantum states in the background spacetime of a Reissner-Nordstrom black hole (both extremal and not), highlighting the similarities and striking differences.
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