No Arabic abstract
A problem in general relativity is, how the gravitational field can transfer energy and momentum between different distant places. The issue is that matter stress tensor is locally conserved, with no explicit interaction with the free gravitational field, which is represented by the Weyl tensor. In this paper we explicitly construct an interaction tensor for free gravity and matter, that depicts the interplay between the energy momentum tensor of free gravity, which is taken to be the symmetric two index square root of Bell-Robinson tensor, and matter. This is examined both in the case of Coulomb-like Petrov type D spacetimes and radiation like Petrov type N spacetimes, where a unique square root exists. The first case generalises the Tweedledum and Tweedledee thought experiment regarding gravitational induction in Newtonian gravity to general relativistic scenarios, and the second gives a proposal for how gravitational radiation can transfer energy and momentum between distant objects separated by a vacuum.
This review summarizes the current status of the energy conditions in general relativity and quantum field theory. We provide a historical review and a summary of technical results and applications, complemented with a few new derivations and discussions. We pay special attention to the role of the equations of motion and to the relation between classical and quantum theories. Pointwise energy conditions were first introduced as physically reasonable restrictions on matter in the context of general relativity. They aim to express e.g. the positivity of mass or the attractiveness of gravity. Perhaps more importantly, they have been used as assumptions in mathematical relativity to prove singularity theorems and the non-existence of wormholes and similar exotic phenomena. However, the delicate balance between conceptual simplicity, general validity and strong results has faced serious challenges, because all pointwise energy conditions are systematically violated by quantum fields and also by some rather simple classical fields. In response to these challenges, weaker statements were introduced, such as quantum energy inequalities and averaged energy conditions. These have a larger range of validity and may still suffice to prove at least some of the earlier results. One of these conditions, the achronal averaged null energy condition, has recently received increased attention. It is expected to be a universal property of the dynamics of all gravitating physical matter, even in the context of semiclassical or quantum gravity.
This lecture will present a review of the past and present tests of the General Relativity theory. The essentials of the theory will be recalled and the measurable effects will be listed and analyzed. The main historical confirmations of General Relativity will be described. Then, the present situation will be reviewed presenting a number of examples. The opportunities given by astrophysical and astrometric observations will be shortly discussed. Coming to terrestrial experiments the attention will be specially focused on ringlasers and a dedicated experiment for the Gran Sasso Laboratories, named by the acronym GINGER, will be presented. Mention will also be made of alternatives to the use of light, such as particle beams and superfluid rings.
We present a number of open problems within general relativity. After a brief introduction to some technical mathematical issues and the famous singularity theorems, we discuss the cosmic censorship hypothesis and the Penrose inequality, the uniqueness of black hole solutions and the stability of Kerr spacetime and the final state conjecture, critical phenomena and the Einstein-Yang--Mills equations, and a number of other problems in classical general relativity. We then broaden the scope and discuss some mathematical problems motivated by quantum gravity, including AdS/CFT correspondence and problems in higher dimensions and, in particular, the instability of anti-de Sitter spacetime, and in cosmology, including the cosmological constant problem and dark energy, the stability of de Sitter spacetime and cosmological singularities and spikes. Finally, we briefly discuss some problems in numerical relativity and relativistic astrophysics.
There have been many attempts to define the notion of quasilocal mass for a spacelike 2-surface in spacetime by the Hamilton-Jacobi analysis. The essential difficulty in this approach is to identify the right choice of the background configuration to be subtracted from the physical Hamiltonian. Quasilocal mass should be nonnegative for surfaces in general spacetime and zero for surfaces in flat spacetime. In this letter, we propose a new definition of gauge-independent quasilocal mass and prove that it has the desired properties.
We present a general solution of the Einstein gravitational field equations for the static spherically symmetric gravitational interior spacetime of an isotropic fluid sphere. The solution is obtained by transforming the pressure isotropy condition, a second order ordinary differential equation, into a Riccati type first order differential equation, and using a general integrability condition for the Riccati equation. This allows us to obtain an exact non-singular solution of the interior field equations for a fluid sphere, expressed in the form of infinite power series. The physical features of the solution are studied in detail numerically by cutting the infinite series expansions, and restricting our numerical analysis by taking into account only $n=21$ terms in the power series representations of the relevant astrophysical parameters. In the present model all physical quantities (density, pressure, speed of sound etc.) are finite at the center of the sphere. The physical behavior of the solution essentially depends on the equation of state of the dense matter at the center of the star. The stability properties of the model are also analyzed in detail for a number of central equations of state, and it is shown that it is stable with respect to the radial adiabatic perturbations. The astrophysical analysis indicates that this solution can be used as a realistic model for static general relativistic high density objects, like neutron stars.