# Going NUTs

By Paul I. Jefremov and Volker Perlick.

Among all known solutions to Einstein’s vacuum field equation the (Taub-)NUT metric is a particularly intriguing one. It is that metric that owing to its counter-intuitive features was once called by Charles Misner “a counter-example to almost anything”. In what follows we give a brief introduction to the NUT black holes, discuss what makes them interesting for a researcher and speculate on how they could be detected should they exist in nature.

Volker Perlick and Pavel (Paul) Ionovič Jefremov from the Gravitational Theory group at the University of Bremen in Germany. Volker is a Privatdozent and his research interests are in classical relativity, (standard and non-standard) electrodynamics and Finsler geometry. He is an amateur astronomer and plays the piano with great enthusiasm and poor skills. Paul got his diploma in Physics at the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI in Moscow, 2014. Now he is a PhD Student in the Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate IRAP Programme at the University of Bremen. Beyond the scientific topics in physics his interests include philosophy in general, philosophy of science, Eastern and ancient philosophy, religion, political and social theories and last but not the least organic farming.

The NUT (Newman–Unti–Tamburino) metric was obtained by Newman, Unti and Tamburino (hence its name) in 1963. It describes a black hole which, in addition to the mass parameter (gravito-electric charge) known from the Schwarzschild solution, depends on a “gravito-magnetic charge”, also known as NUT parameter. If the NUT metric is analytically extended, on the other side of the horizon it becomes isometric to a vacuum solution of Einstein’s field equations found by Abraham Taub already in 1951. However, for an observer who is prudent enough to stay outside the black hole, the Taub part is irrelevant.

At first sight, the existence of the NUT metric seems to violate the uniqueness (“no-hair”) theorem of black holes according to which a non-spinning uncharged black hole is uniquely characterised by its mass. Actually, there is no contradiction because Continue reading

# Black holes without special relativity

By Jishnu Bhattacharyya, Mattia Colombo and Thomas Sotiriou.

Black holes are perhaps the most fascinating predictions of General Relativity (GR). Yet, their very existence (conventionally) hinges on Special Relativity (SR), or more precisely on local Lorentz symmetry. This symmetry is the local manifestation of the causal structure of GR and it dictates that the speed of light is finite and the maximal speed attainable. Accepting also that light gravitates, one can then intuitively arrive at the conclusion that black holes should exist — as John Michell already did in 1783!

One can reverse the argument: does accepting that black holes exist, as astronomical observations and the recent gravitational wave direct detections strongly suggest, imply that Lorentz symmetry is an exact symmetry of nature? In other words, is this ground breaking prediction of GR the ultimate vindication of SR?

Jishnu Bhattacharyya, Mattia Colombo and Thomas Sotiriou from the School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Nottingham.

These questions might seem ill-posed if one sees GR simply as a generalisation of SR to non-inertial observers. On the same footing, one might consider questioning Lorentz symmetry as a step backwards altogether. Yet, there is an alternative perspective. GR taught us that our theories should be expressible in a covariant language and that there is a dynamical metric that is responsible for the gravitational interaction. Universality of free fall implies that Continue reading

# Advancing the Search for Gravitational Waves with Next-Generation Citizen Science

by Michael Zevin.

Michael Zevin is a third-year doctoral student in astrophysics at Northwestern University. He is a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, and in addition to citizen science and LIGO detector characterization his research focuses on utilizing gravitational-wave detections to learn about binary stellar evolution and the environments in which compact binaries form.

With the first observations of gravitational waves and the discovery of binary black hole systems, LIGO has unveiled a new domain of the universe to explore. Though the recent signals persisted in LIGO’s sensitive band for a second or less, these last words of the binary that were spewed into the cosmos provided an unprecedented test of general relativity and insight into the progenitor stars that subsequently formed into the colliding black holes. However, the hunt is far from over. With LIGO’s second observing run underway, we can look forward to many more gravitational-wave signals, and as is true with any new mechanism for studying the cosmos, we can also expect to find the unexpected.

The extreme sensitivity required to make such detections was acquired through decades of developing methods and machinery to isolate the sensitive components of LIGO from non-gravitational-wave disturbances. Nonetheless, as a noise-dominated experiment, LIGO is still susceptible to Continue reading

# Tails from Eccentric Encounters

by Nicholas Loutrel.

Nicholas Loutrel is a Graduate Student in the eXtreme Gravity Institute at Montana State University.

A new method of computation aims to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of gravitational waves from eccentric binaries.

The modeling of gravitational waves (GWs) suitable for detection with ground-based detectors has been mostly focused on binary systems composed of compact objects, such as neutron stars (NSs) and black holes (BHs). Binaries that form with wide orbital separations are expected to have very small orbital eccentricity, typically less than 0.1, by the time their GW emission enters the detection band of these instruments. However, in dense stellar environments, unbound encounters between multiple compact objects can result in the formation of binaries with high orbital eccentricity (close to, but still less than unity) and whose GW emission is in band for ground-based detectors. Such systems are expected to be Continue reading

# Issue of the Beginning: Initial Conditions for Cosmological Perturbations

by Abhay Ashtekar and Brajesh Gupt.

Abhay Ashtekar holds the Eberly Chair in Physics and the Director of the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos at the Pennsylvania State University. Currently, he is a Visiting Professor at the CNRS Centre de Physique Théorique at Aix-Marseille Université.

Although our universe has an interesting and intricate large-scale structure now, observations show that it was extraordinarily simple at the surface of last scattering. From a theoretical perspective, this simplicity is surprising. Is there a principle to weed out the plethora of initial conditions which would have led to a much more complicated behavior also at early times?

In the late 1970s Penrose proposed such a principle through his Weyl curvature hypothesis (WCH) [1,2]: in spite of the strong curvature singularity, Big Bang is very special in that the Weyl curvature vanishes there. This hypothesis is attractive especially because it is purely geometric and completely general; it is not tied to a specific early universe scenario such as inflation.

However, the WCH is tied to general relativity and its Big Bang where classical physics comes to an abrupt halt. It is generally believed that quantum gravity effects would intervene and resolve the big bang singularity. The question then is Continue reading

# Pants on fire!

One of the authors, Ian Jubb, discussing a pair of trousers with his colleagues at Imperial College London. Ian Jubb is currently the PhD student of Fay Dowker in the Theoretical Physics group at Imperial College London.

by Ian Jubb and Michel Buck.

Did you know that Quantum Gravity literally sets pants on fire?

Your pants are not just a nifty garment, they are also a perfect example of a space undergoing a process known as topology change. Take a space that initially consists of two separate circles. If they were to meet and merge into a single circle, the topology of the space would have changed. The trousers allow us to visualise each stage of this process, with cross sections higher up the trouser leg corresponding to later times in the process (if we hold the trousers upside-down, we get the reverse process, corresponding to a single circle splitting into two circles). Instead of viewing this process as the space changing in time, Einstein would tell us to view the trousers in their entirety, as one whole spacetime — the trousers spacetime.

But why should we care about spaces that can ‘split’ and ’attach’ like this? It turns out that there are good reasons to believe that Continue reading

# Quantum gravity in the sky?

by Abhay Ashtekar and Brajesh Gupt.

Quantum gravity effects in the very early Universe can leave observable imprints.

Abhay Ashtekar (picture taken as a postdoc at Oxford University) is the Eberly Professor of Physics and the Director of the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos at the Pennsylvania State University.

The inflationary paradigm traces the genesis of the large-scale structure of the cosmos to astonishingly early times. However, at the onset of inflation spacetime curvature is only about 10-14 times the Planck curvature where quantum gravity effects dominate. Therefore, it is natural to ask if the earlier, pre-inflationary phase of dynamics would change observable predictions of standard inflation. The answer is often assumed to be in the negative. Our CQG paper shows that this conclusion is premature. Specifically, in Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC) there is an unforeseen interplay between the ultraviolet effects that tame the big bang singularity, and dynamics of infrared modes of cosmological perturbations. As a result, imprints of the quantum spacetime geometry in the Planck regime can manifest themselves at the largest angular scales in the CMB.

In LQC, quantum geometry effects dominate in the Planck regime, replacing the big bang by a quantum bounce, where scalar curvature reaches its finite and universal upper bound. Therefore the radius of curvature has a non-zero lower bound, $r_{\rm LQC}$. Over the last 7 years, techniques have been developed to describe dynamics of the cosmological perturbations on this quantum background geometry, thereby facing the trans-Planckian issues squarely. Standard inflation assumes Continue reading

# Pulsed Gravitational Waves

Timothy J. Walton occupies some quantum state between a physicist and a mathematician, having obtained his PhD from the physics department at Lancaster University in 2008 but now masquerading as a lecturer in mathematics at the University of Bolton.

by Timothy J. Walton.

Applying techniques from classical electrodynamics to generate new gravitational wave perturbations

I must begin with a confession: I don’t view myself as a gravitational physicist. Despite my PhD at Lancaster University involving a formulation of relativistic elasticity and an awful lot of differential geometry, my research thus far has been within the realm of classical and quantum electrodynamics. But it was precisely within that domain, along one particular avenue of investigation, where the first seeds of an idea were sown. Following my earlier work on a class of exact finite energy, spatially compact solutions to the vacuum source-free Maxwell equations – pulsed electromagnetic waves – describing single cycle pulses of laser light [1], together with Shin Goto at Kyoto University in Japan and my former PhD supervisor Robin Tucker at Lancaster University, a new question arose: “do pulsed gravitational waves exist?’’

As I recall, this question was posed and began to take root during one of the regular meetings I have with Robin. Within my institution, I am fortunate enough Continue reading

# Quantum mechanics meets CMB physics

by Massimo Giovannini.

Since 1991 Massimo Giovannini has extensively researched, taught and written on high-energy physics, gravitation and cosmology. He wrote over 180 papers and various review articles. He is the author of a book entitled “A primer on the physics of Cosmic Microwave Background” published in 2008.

Which is the origin of the temperature and polarization anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Background? Classical or quantum? The temperature and the polarization anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) are customarily explained in terms of large-scale curvature inhomogeneities. Are curvature perturbations originally classical or are they inherently quantum mechanical, as speculated many years ago by Sakharov?

In the conventional view these questions are quickly dismissed since the quantum origin of large-scale curvature fluctuations is, according to some, an indisputable fact of nature. This is true if and when Continue reading

# Pushing post-Newtonian theory even further!

by Tanguy Marchand, Luc Blanchet and Guillame Faye.

With the spectacular discoveries by the LIGO/VIRGO collaboration of gravitational waves from the coalescence of black-hole binaries, we foresee the possibility of extremely accurate measurements of the so-called post-Newtonian (PN) coefficients that describe the gravitational waveform of these systems in the inspiral phase prior to the final coalescence. The PN coefficients are especially important because they probe the non-linear structure of general relativity (GR) and provide thus very constraining tests of this theory. In turn, they permit accurate measurements of the physical parameters of the binary, essentially the mass of the compact objects and their moment of rotation or spin.