Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · gr-qc/9410041

Scattering Processes at the Planck Scale

C. O. Lousto·N. Sánchez
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

The ultrarelativistic limit of the Kerr - Newman geometry is studied in detail. We find the gravitational shock wave background associated with this limit. We study the scattering of scalar fields in the gravitational shock wave geometries and compare this with the scattering by ultrarelativistic extended sources and with the scattering of fundamental strings. We also study planckian energy string collisions in flat spacetime as the scattering of a string in the effective curved background produced by the others as the impact parameter $b$ decreases. We find the effective energy density distribution generated by these collisions. The effective metric generated by these collisions is a gravitational shock wave with profile $f(ρ)\sim pρ^{4-D}$, for large impact parameter $b$. For intermediate $b$, $f(ρ)\sim qρ^2$, corresponding to an extended source of momentum $q$. We finally study the emergence of string instabilities in $D$ - dimensional black hole spacetimes and De Sitter space. We solve the first order string fluctuations around the center of mass motion at spatial infinity, near the horizon and at the spacetime singularity. We find that the time components are always well behaved in the three regions and in the three backgrounds. The radial components are unstable: imaginary frequencies develop in the oscillatory modes near the horizon, and the evolution is like $(τ-τ_0)^ {-P}$, $(P>0)$, near the spacetime singularity, $r\to0$, where the world - sheet time $(τ-τ_0)\to0$, and the proper string length grows infinitely.

Explore related subjects

gr-qcastro-phhep-th

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

C. O. Lousto, N. Sánchez. 1994-10-28. Scattering Processes at the Planck Scale. https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9410041

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Electrovacuum Black Hole Uniqueness

We prove the black hole uniqueness conjecture in the axially symmetric, stationary, electrovacuum setting, subject to the refined asymptotic analysis of the associated singular harmonic maps, which includes an analyticity hypothesis at the axes. More precisely, it is shown that any asymptotically flat solution of the Einstein--Maxwell equations in this class, with more than one black hole horizon component is either: Majumdar--Papapetrou, up to a duality rotation, in which case all logarithmic angle defects vanish, or every finite axis rod logarithmic angle defect is strictly negative and hence every interaction force is strictly attractive. The proof extends the singular harmonic map method used for vacuum Kerr uniqueness in [18].

gr-qc↗
arXiv2026

Constraining Modified Mass-to-Horizon Cosmology Through Primordial Inflationary Observables

We investigate slow-roll inflation in a modified cosmological framework inspired by a generalized mass-to-horizon relation (MHR), $M=\gamma {c^2 L^n}/{G}$, where $n$ is a real parameter and $\gamma$ a dimensional constant. Using Padmanabhan's emergence paradigm, we derive the modified Friedmann equations for a flat FRW universe and analyze the dynamics of a canonical scalar field (inflaton) under the slow-roll approximation. We study the resulting inflationary phenomenology for power-law and Starobinsky potentials. For power-law potentials, the MHR modification fails to reconcile these models with current CMB constraints on $r$ and $n_s$. In contrast, Starobinsky inflation exhibits significant sensitivity to deviations from $n=1$. A perturbative analysis ($n=1+\Delta$) yields corrections to inflationary observables. We observe that the scalar power-spectrum normalization, under a fixed-Starobinsky prescription, imposes the stringent constraint $0.960 \lesssim n \lesssim 1.040$ for $N=60$ efolds. This is considerably tighter than spectral-index bounds. Our results establish inflation, particularly Starobinsky-like models, as a sensitive probe of generalized horizon thermodynamics and departures from standard MHR scaling.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2026

Improving the Sensitivity of Gravitational Wave Detection with Weighted Conformal Prediction

In the last decade, kilometre-scale interferometric gravitational-wave detectors have observed hundreds of compact binary mergers, the majority of which are binary black holes. However, the data are noise-dominated, and multiple independent search algorithms (pipelines) are used to enhance sensitivity and improve robustness. Rather than the standard approach of selecting the most significant pipeline output, we combine the outputs from all pipelines using a conformal prediction-based framework to provide statistically rigorous confidence estimates for candidate events. While combining pipelines improves sensitivity and ranking robustness, it requires a principled statistical framework that remains valid as data properties evolve across observing runs. A key challenge is distribution shifts between simulated datasets used for training and calibration and the real, unlabelled, observations used for testing, which can invalidate coverage guarantees and bias confidence estimates. In this work, we address this challenge by incorporating likelihood-ratio reweighting into our conformal prediction framework to account for covariate shift. Using mock datasets containing simulated signals, we demonstrate that weighted conformal prediction restores well-calibrated coverage under covariate shift and increases the confidence of events near the detection threshold, recovering true signals that would otherwise be missed.

gr-qc↗