Table of contents

When in a tight binary, the mutual tidal deformations of neutron stars get imprinted onto observables, encoding information about their internal structure at supranuclear densities and gravity in the extreme-gravity regime. Gravitational wave (GW) observations of their late binary inspiral may serve as a tool to extract the individual tidal deformabilities, but this is made difficult by degeneracies between them in the GW model. We here resolve this problem by discovering approximately equation-of-state (EoS)-insensitive relations between dimensionless combinations of the individual tidal deformabilities. We show that these relations break degeneracies in the GW model, allowing for the accurate extraction of both deformabilities. Such measurements can be used to better differentiate between EoS models, and improve tests of general relativity and cosmology.

The wide applications of higher dimensional gravity and gauge/gravity duality have fuelled the search for new stationary solutions of the Einstein equation (possibly coupled to matter). In this topical review, we explain the mathematical foundations and give a practical guide for the numerical solution of gravitational boundary value problems. We present these methods by way of example: resolving asymptotically flat black rings, singly spinning lumpy black holes in anti-de Sitter (AdS), and the Gregory–Laflamme zero modes of small rotating black holes in AdS${}_{5}\times {S}^{5}$. We also include several tools and tricks that have been useful throughout the literature.

On 14 September 2015, a gravitational wave signal from a coalescing black hole binary system was observed by the Advanced LIGO detectors. This paper describes the transient noise backgrounds used to determine the significance of the event (designated GW150914) and presents the results of investigations into potential correlated or uncorrelated sources of transient noise in the detectors around the time of the event. The detectors were operating nominally at the time of GW150914. We have ruled out environmental influences and non-Gaussian instrument noise at either LIGO detector as the cause of the observed gravitational wave signal.

We study the efficiency of heat engines that perform mechanical work via the pdV terms present in the first law in extended gravitational thermodynamics. We use charged black holes as the working substance, for a particular choice of engine cycle. The context is Einstein gravity with negative cosmological constant and a Born–Infeld nonlinear electrodynamics sector. We compare the results for these 'holographic' heat engines to previous results obtained for Einstein–Maxwell black holes, and for the case where there is a Gauss–Bonnet sector.

We present numerical-relativity simulations of spherically symmetric core collapse and compact-object formation in scalar-tensor theories of gravity. The additional scalar degree of freedom introduces a propagating monopole gravitational-wave mode. Detection of monopole scalar waves with current and future gravitational-wave experiments may constitute smoking gun evidence for strong-field modifications of general relativity. We collapse both polytropic and more realistic pre-supernova profiles using a high-resolution shock-capturing scheme and an approximate prescription for the nuclear equation of state. The most promising sources of scalar radiation are protoneutron stars collapsing to black holes. In case of a galactic core collapse event forming a black hole, Advanced LIGO may be able to place independent constraints on the parameters of the theory at a level comparable to current solar-system and binary-pulsar measurements. In the region of the parameter space admitting spontaneously scalarised stars, transition to configurations with prominent scalar hair before black-hole formation further enhances the emitted signal. Although a more realistic treatment of the microphysics is necessary to fully investigate the occurrence of spontaneous scalarisation of neutron star remnants, we speculate that formation of such objects could constrain the parameters of the theory beyond the current bounds obtained with solar-system and binary-pulsar experiments.

Recent work has shown that the entropy of the non-rotating BTZ black hole can be derived from a dual conformal description at any spatial location. In this followup it is shown that a dual conformal description exists at any spatial location for the rotating BTZ black hole as well. As in the non-rotating case, two copies of the central charge ${c}^{\pm }=3{\ell }/2G$ are recovered and the microcanonical Cardy formula yields the correct Bekenstein–Hawking entropy.

In this paper, we investigate the effective thermodynamic quantities in Kerr–Newman–de Sitter spacetime by considering the relations between the black hole event horizon and the cosmological event horizon. We find the effect of the critical point of Kerr–Newman–de Sitter spacetime for the different state parameters. We study the critical phenomena of the system taking different state parameters. This result is consistent with the nature of a liquid–gas phase transition at the critical point, hence deepening the understanding of the analogy of charged de Sitter spacetime and liquid–gas systems.

We construct a four-parameter family of inhomogeneous cosmological models, which contains two recently derived three-parameter families as special cases. The corresponding exact vacuum solution to Einstein's field equations is obtained with methods from soliton theory. We also study properties of these models and find that they combine all interesting features of both earlier solution families: general regularity within the maximal globally hyperbolic region, particular singular cases in which a curvature singularity with a directional behaviour forms, a highly non-trivial causal structure, and Cauchy horizons whose null generators can have both closed or non-closed orbits. In the second part of the paper, we discuss the generalisation from vacuum to electrovacuum. Moreover, we also present a family of exact solutions for that case and study its properties.

We examine the basic assumptions in the original setup of the firewall paradox. The main claim is that a single mode of the lathe radiation is maximally entangled with the mode inside the horizon and simultaneously with the modes of early Hawking radiation. We argue that this situation never happens during the evolution of a black hole. Quantum mechanics tells us that while the black hole exists, unitary evolution maximally entangles a late mode located just outside the horizon with a combination of early radiation and black hole states, instead of either of them separately. One of the reasons for this is that the black hole radiation is not random and strongly depends on the geometry and charge of the black hole, as detailed numerical calculations of Hawking evaporation clearly show. As a consequence, one can not factor out the state of the black hole. However, this extended entanglement between the black hole and modes of early and late radiation indicates that, as the black hole ages, the local Rindler horizon is modified out to macroscopic distances from the black hole. Fundamentally non-local physics nor firewalls are not necessary to explain this result. We propose an infrared mechanism called icezone that is mediated by low energy interacting modes and acts near any event horizon to entangle states separated by long distances. These interactions at first provide small corrections to the thermal Hawking radiation. At the end of evaporation however the effect of interactions is as large as the Hawking radiation and information is recovered for an outside observer. We verify this in an explicit construction and calculation of the density matrix of a spin model.

We describe a concept for realizing a high performance space-time reference using a stable atomic clock in a precisely defined orbit and synchronizing the orbiting clock to high-accuracy atomic clocks on the ground. The synchronization would be accomplished using a two-way lasercom link between ground and space. The basic approach is to take advantage of the highest-performance cold-atom atomic clocks at national standards laboratories on the ground and to transfer that performance to an orbiting clock that has good stability and that serves as a 'frequency-flywheel' over time-scales of a few hours. The two-way lasercom link would also provide precise range information and thus precise orbit determination. With a well-defined orbit and a synchronized clock, the satellite could serve as a high-accuracy space-time reference, providing precise time worldwide, a valuable reference frame for geodesy, and independent high-accuracy measurements of GNSS clocks. Under reasonable assumptions, a practical system would be able to deliver picosecond timing worldwide and millimeter orbit determination, and could serve as an enabling subsystem for other proposed space-gravity missions, which are briefly reviewed.

We construct Schrödinger-like solutions of the Vasiliev higher spin theory in $D\gt 3$ dimension. Symmetries of such solutions and the linearized equation of motion for the scalar on such backgrounds are analyzed. We further propose Galilean invariant bosonic and fermionic field theories that could be dual to the two parity invariant higher spin theories on the Schrödinger-like background respectively. The discussion is phrased mainly in D = 4 dimension, while similar constructions follow straightforwardly in higher dimensions.

We prove that, in a class of spherically symmetric spacetimes exhibiting stable trapping of null geodesics, linear waves cannot (uniformly) decay faster than logarithmically. When these linear waves are treated as a model for nonlinear perturbations, this slow decay is highly suggestive of nonlinear instability. We also prove that, in a large class of asymptotically flat, spherically symmetric spacetimes, logarithmic decay actually holds as a uniform upper bound. In the presence of stable trapping, this result is therefore the best one can obtain. In addition, we provide an application of these results to ultracompact neutron stars, suggesting that all stars with $r\lt 3M$ might be unstable.

Spinor description for the curvatures of D = 5 Yang–Mills, Rarita–Schwinger and gravitational fields is elaborated. Restrictions imposed on the curvature spinors by the dynamical equations and Bianchi identities are analyzed. In the absence of sources symmetric curvature spinors with $2s$ indices obey first-order equations that in the linearized limit reduce to Dirac-type equations for massless free fields. These equations allow for a higher-spin generalization similarly to $4d$ case. Their solution in the form of the integral over Lorentz-harmonic variables parametrizing coset manifold ${SO}(1,4)/({SO}(1,1)\times {ISO}(3))$ isomorphic to the three-sphere is considered. Superparticle model that contains such Lorentz harmonics as dynamical variables, as well as harmonics parametrizing the two-sphere ${SU}(2)/U(1)$ is proposed. The states in its spectrum are given by the functions on S³ that upon integrating over the Lorentz harmonics reproduce on-shell symmetric curvature spinors for various supermultiplets of D = 5 space–time supersymmetry.

Causal set non-local wave operators allow both for the definition of an action for causal set theory and the study of deviations from local physics that may have interesting phenomenological consequences. It was previously shown that, in all dimensions, the (unique) minimal discrete operators give averaged continuum non-local operators that reduce to $\square -R/2$ in the local limit. Recently, dropping the constraint of minimality, it was shown that there exist an infinite number of discrete operators satisfying basic physical requirements and with the right local limit in flat spacetime. In this work, we consider this entire class of generalized causal set d'Alembertins in curved spacetimes and extend to them the result about the universality of the −R/2 factor. Finally, we comment on the relation of this result to the Einstein equivalence principle.

The retrieval of black hole information was recently presented in two interesting proposals in the 'Hawking Radiation' conference: a revised version by Hooft of a proposal he initially suggested 20 years ago and, a new proposal by Hawking. Both proposals address the problem of black hole information loss at the classical level and derive an expression for the scattering matrix. The former uses gravitation back reaction of incoming particles that imprints its information on the outgoing modes. The latter uses supertranslation symmetry of horizons to relate a phase delay of the outgoing wave packet compared to their incoming wave partners. The difficulty in both proposals is that the entropy obtained from them appears to be infinite. By including quantum effects into the Hawking and Hooft's proposals, I show that a subtlety arising from the inescapable measurement process, the quantum Zeno effect, not only tames divergences but it actually recovers the correct 1/4 of the area Bekenstein–Hawking entropy law of black holes.

We study Kaluza–Klein reduction in Newton–Cartan gravity. In particular we show that dimensional reduction and the nonrelativistic limit commute. The resulting theory contains Galilean electromagnetism and a nonrelativistic scalar. It provides the first example of back-reacted couplings of scalar and vector matter to Newton–Cartan gravity. This back-reaction is interesting as it sources the spatial Ricci curvature, providing an example where nonrelativistic gravity is more than just a Newtonian potential.