No Arabic abstract
The energy density of asymptotically flat gravitational fields can be calculated from a simple expression involving the trace of the torsion tensor. Integration of this energy density over the whole space yields the ADM energy. Such expression can be justified within the framework of the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity, which is an alternative geometrical formulation of Einsteins general relativity. In this paper we apply this energy density to the evaluation of the energy per unit length of a class of conical defects of topological nature, which include disclinations and dislocations (in the terminology of crystallography). Disclinations correspond to cosmic strings, and for a spacetime endowed with only such a defect we obtain precisely the well known expression of energy per unit length. However for a pure spacetime dislocation the total gravitational energy is zero.
This dissertation presents a semiclassical analysis of conical topology change in $1+1$ spacetime dimensions wherein, to lowest order, the ambient spacetime is classical and fixed while the scalar field coupled to it is quantized. The vacuum expectation value of the scalar field stress-energy tensor is calculated via two different approaches. The first of these involves the explicit determination of the so called Sorkin-Johnston state on the cone and an original regularization scheme, while the latter employs the conformal vacuum and the more conventional point-splitting renormalization. It is found that conical topology change seems not to suffer from the same pathologies that trousers-type topology change does. This provides tentative agreement with conjectures due to Sorkin and Borde, which attempt to classify topology changing spacetimes with respect to their Morse critical points and in particular, that the cone and yarmulke in $1+1$ dimensions lack critical points of unit Morse index.
In the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity the energy density of asymptotically flat gravitational fields can be naturaly defined as a scalar density restricted to a three-dimensional spacelike hypersurface $Sigma$. Integration over the whole $Sigma$ yields the standard ADM energy. After establishing the reference space with zero gravitational energy we obtain the expression of the localized energy for a Kerr black hole. The expression of the energy inside a surface of constant radius can be explicitly calculated in the limit of small $a$, the specific angular momentum. Such expression turns out to be exactly the same as the one obtained by means of the method preposed recently by Brown and York. We also calculate the energy contained within the outer horizon of the black hole for {it any} value of $a$. The result is practically indistinguishable from $E=2M_{ir}$, where $M_{ir}$ is the irreducible mass of the black hole.
We revisit the spectrum of pure quantum gravity in AdS$_3$. The computation of the torus partition function will -- if computed using a gravitational path integral that includes only smooth saddle points -- lead to a density of states which is not physically sensible, as it has a negative degeneracy of states for some energies and spins. We consider a minimal cure for this non-unitarity of the pure gravity partition function, which involves the inclusion of additional states below the black hole threshold. We propose a geometric interpretation for these extra states: they are conical defects with deficit angle $2pi(1-1/N)$, where $N$ is a positive integer. That only integer values of $N$ should be included can be seen from a modular bootstrap argument, and leads us to propose a modest extension of the set of saddle-point configurations that contribute to the gravitational path integral: one should sum over orbifolds in addition to smooth manifolds. These orbifold states are below the black hole threshold and are regarded as massive particles in AdS, but they are not perturbative states: they are too heavy to form multi-particle bound states. We compute the one-loop determinant for gravitons in these orbifold backgrounds, which confirms that the orbifold states are Virasoro primaries. We compute the gravitational partition function including the sum over these orbifolds and find a finite, modular invariant result; this finiteness involves a delicate cancellation between the infinite tower of orbifold states and an infinite number of instantons associated with $PSL(2,{mathbb Z})$ images.
We apply the classical double copy to the calculation of self-energy of composite systems with multipolar coupling to gravitational field, obtaining next-to-leading order results in the gravitational coupling $G_N$ by generalizing color to kinematics replacement rules known in literature. When applied to the multipolar description of the two-body system, the self-energy diagrams studied in this work correspond to tail processes, whose physical interpretation is of radiation being emitted by the non-relativistic source, scattered by the curvature generated by the binary system and then re-absorbed by the same source. These processes contribute to the conservative two-body dynamics and the present work represents a decisive step towards the systematic use of double copy within the multipolar post-Minkowskian expansion.
The energy content of cylindrical gravitational wave spacetimes is analyzed by considering two local descriptions of energy associated with the gravitational field, namely those based on the C-energy and the Bel-Robinson super-energy tensor. A Poynting-Robertson-like effect on the motion of massive test particles, beyond the geodesic approximation, is discussed, allowing them to interact with the background field through an external force which accounts for the exchange of energy and momentum between particles and waves. In addition, the relative strains exerted on a bunch of particles displaced orthogonally to the direction of propagation of the wave are examined, providing invariant information on spacetime curvature effects caused by the passage of the wave. The explicit examples of monochromatic waves with either a single or two polarization states as well as pulses of gravitational radiation are discussed.