arXiv subjects

Andrea P. Sanna

Publications and source records attributed to Andrea P. Sanna.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Scalar shortcut to beyond-Kerr ringdown tests and their complementarity with black-hole shadow observations

The quasinormal modes of black holes (BHs) in the large-angular-momentum limit can be computed within the eikonal approximation. This approximation is often extrapolated to low angular momentum to obtain a rough estimate of the dominant ringdown modes. Although approximate, this approach is particularly convenient in theories beyond general relativity with intricate dynamics, or for phenomenological metrics that lack an underlying fundamental theory. Here we explore a complementary approximate strategy: we compute exactly the quasinormal modes of a test scalar field propagating on the BH background and use their \emph{deviations} from the general-relativity predictions as a proxy for the corresponding corrections to the gravitational quasinormal modes. For Kerr-Newman and Einstein-scalar-Gauss-Bonnet BHs, we show that this method reproduces the exact corrections (including the coupling among different degrees of freedom) within tens of percent, an accuracy that is adequate as long as ringdown measurements remain at the percent level. Furthermore, this method is typically comparable to, or more accurate than, the eikonal approximation. We then apply the same strategy to phenomenological metrics commonly employed in tests of gravity using BH imaging. By computing scalar quasinormal modes in a large family of these metrics for the first time, we find that current ringdown constraints are comparable to, and in some cases more stringent than, those derived from BH shadow observations, while also providing complementary bounds on sectors that would otherwise be inaccessible.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2026

Cosmologically Coupled Black Holes with Regular Horizons

We present the most general and exact solution of Einstein's gravity sourced by an anisotropic fluid describing the cosmological embedding (CE) of a static and spherically-symmetric object, including black holes (BHs) or exotic compact objects, without radial energy influx and in an arbitrary Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) cosmology. This is done fully considering backreaction of the local geometry on the cosmological dynamics. Our solution is free of curvature singularities at the would-be BH event horizon, thus solving a main issue of the CE of BH solutions proposed so far. As a byproduct, we derive a new CE of the Schwarzschild BH - distinct from McVitties's original proposal - that is regular everywhere except at the central singularity.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2025

Gravity with higher-curvature terms and second-order field equations: $f(\mathcal{R})$ meets Gauss-Bonnet

General Relativity is expected to break down in the high-curvature regime. Beyond an effective field theory treatment with higher-order operators, it is important to identify consistent theories with higher-curvature terms at the nonperturbative level. Two well-studied examples are $f(\mathcal{R})$ gravity and Einstein-dilaton-Gauss-Bonnet (EdGB) gravity. The former shares the same vacuum solutions as General Relativity, including black holes, while the latter suffers from well-posedness issues due to quadratic curvature terms in the strong-coupling regime. We show that combining these two theories leads to genuinely new phenomena beyond their simple superposition. The resulting framework falls outside Horndeski's class, as it can be recast as a gravitational theory involving two nonminimally coupled scalar fields with nontrivial mutual interactions. This construction naturally extends EdGB gravity to include arbitrary higher-curvature terms, providing a versatile setting to address fundamental questions. Focusing on quadratic and quartic corrections, we find that: (i) black holes are modified by $f(\mathcal{R})$ terms, unlike the case without Gauss-Bonnet interactions; (ii) the resulting solutions retain the qualitative nonperturbative features of EdGB black holes with certain couplings, such as a minimum mass and multiple branches; (iii) a nontrivial mechanism suppresses the divergence of the Ricci scalar in the black-hole interior; (iv) still, even with quartic corrections, the singularity structure and elliptic regions inside the horizon remain similar to those of pure EdGB gravity. This suggests that, at the nonperturbative level, the theory's ill-posedness cannot be resolved by adding individual higher-order terms. This conjecture could be tested by studying the nonlinear dynamics, which remains governed by second-order field equations.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2025

Weak Cosmic Censorship with spinning particles in Kerr-(A)dS spacetimes

We investigate the weak cosmic censorship conjecture by analyzing the dynamics of spinning timelike particles dropped along the rotational axis of an extremal Kerr (anti)de Sitter black hole. This idea was first considered in a seminal paper by Wald and later by Needham but both analyses were restricted to asymptotically flat spacetimes. We generalize these studies, involving spinning particles, to rotating spacetimes with non vanishing cosmological constant. We examine whether the absorption of such particles can overspin the black hole beyond extremality, potentially leading to the formation of a naked singularity. In asymptotically de Sitter spacetime, we find that particles that are captured cannot overspin the black hole. Similar conclusions hold also with anti-de Sitter asymptotics, but the analysis is more subtle, requiring careful consideration of the point particle approximation.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2025

Nucleation of de Sitter from the anti de Sitter spacetime in scalar field models

We show that, in the framework of Einstein-scalar gravity, the gravitational coupling can drive the nucleation of the de Sitter (dS) spacetime from an anti de Sitter (AdS) one. This is done using a static and spherically-symmetric metastable scalar lump solution. This features an $\text{AdS}_4$ spacetime in the solution's core, allows for $\text{dS}_4$ vacua and is plagued by a tachyonic instability. Using the Euclidean action formalism in the semiclassical approximation, we compute and compare the probability amplitudes and the free energies of the $\text{AdS}_{4}$ lump and the $\text{dS}_4$ vacua. Our results show that the former is generally less favored than the latter, with the most preferred state being a $\text{dS}_4$ vacuum. Thus, we interpret the lump as a metastable state which mediates the decay of the $\text{AdS}_4$ spacetime into the true $\text{dS}_4$ vacuum. We argue that this nucleation mechanism of dS spacetime may provide insights into the short-distance behavior of gravity, in particular for the characterization of supergravity vacua, cosmological inflation and the black-hole singularity problem.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2024

Cosmological coupling of local gravitational systems

We investigate the cosmological coupling of spherical, local astrophysical systems. We derive a general formula quantifying the cosmological coupling of the Misner-Sharp mass of these objects. We show that, in the weak-field limit, the cosmological coupling is only allowed if there are pressure anisotropies. We also apply our results to galaxies, modelling them with the Navarro-Frenk-White and Einasto profiles. We show that the galactic mass can be coupled to the cosmological dynamics and examine its dependence on the scale factor of the universe.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2024

Weak cosmic censorship and the rotating quantum BTZ black hole

Tests of the weak cosmic censorship conjecture examine the possibility of the breakdown of predictivity of the gravitational theory considered, by checking if curvature singularities typically present in black hole spacetimes are concealed within an event horizon at all times. A possible method to perform such tests was proposed by Wald and consists in trying to overspin an extremal rotating black hole by throwing at it a test particle with large angular momentum. In this paper, we analyze the effects of dropping a test particle into an extremal quantum rotating BTZ black hole, whose three-dimensional metric captures the exact backreaction from strongly coupled quantum conformal fields. Our analysis reveals that, despite the inclusion of quantum effects, and akin to the classical scenario, these attempts to destroy the black hole are doomed to be unsuccessful. Particles carrying the maximum angular momentum and still falling into an extremal quantum BTZ black hole can, at most, leave it extremal. Nevertheless, we found numerical evidence that large backreaction of the quantum fields tends to disfavor violations of cosmic censorship.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Quasi-local masses and cosmological coupling of black holes and mimickers

Motivated by the recent heated debate on whether the masses of local objects, such as compact stars or black holes (BHs), may be affected by the large-scale, cosmological dynamics, we analyze the conditions under which, in a general relativity framework, such a coupling small/large scales is allowed. We shed light on some controversial arguments, which have been used to rule out the latter possibility. We find that the cosmological coupling occurs whenever the energy of the central objects is quantified by the quasi-local Misner-Sharp mass (MS). Conversely, the decoupling occurs whenever the MS mass is fully equivalent to the (nonlocal) Arnowitt-Deser-Misner (ADM) mass. Consequently, for singular BHs embedded in cosmological backgrounds, like the Schwarzschild-de Sitter or McVittie solutions, we show that there is no cosmological coupling, confirming previous results in the literature. Furthermore, we show that nonsingular compact objects couple to the cosmological background, as quantified by their MS mass. We conclude that observational evidence of cosmological coupling of astrophysical BHs would be the smoking gun of their nonsingular nature.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2023

Scalar stars and lumps with (A)dS core

We explore the possibility of embedding regular compact objects with (anti) de Sitter ((A)dS) core as solutions of Einstein's gravity minimally coupled to a real scalar field. We consider, among others, solutions interpolating between an inner, potential-dominated core and an outer, kinetic-term-dominated region. Owing to their analogy with slow-roll inflation, we term them gravitational vacuum inflative stars, or gravistars for short. We systematically discuss approximate solutions of the theory describing either the core or the asymptotically-flat region at spatial infinity. We extend nonexistence theorems for smooth interpolating solutions, previously proved for black holes, to compact objects without event horizons. This allows us to construct different classes of exact (either smooth or non-smooth) singularity-free solutions of the theory. We first find a smooth solution interpolating between an AdS spacetime in the core and an asymptotically-flat spacetime (a Schwarzschild solution with a subleading $1/r^2$ deformation). We proceed by constructing non-smooth solutions describing gravistars. Finally, we derive a smooth scalar lump solution interpolating between $\text{AdS}_4$ in the core and a Nariai spacetime at spatial infinity.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2021

Quasi-normal modes and Microscopic Structure of the Schwarzschild Black Hole

Maggiore observed that, in the high-damping regime, the quasi-normal modes spectrum for the Schwarzschild black hole resembles that of a quantum harmonic oscillator. Motivated by this observation, we describe a black hole as a statistical ensemble of N quantum harmonic oscillators. By working in the canonical ensemble, we show that, in the large-mass black hole limit, the leading contribution to the Gibbs entropy is the Bekenstein-Hawking term, while the subleading one is a logarithmic correction, in agreement with several results in the literature. We also find that the number of oscillators scales holographically with the area of the event horizon.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2021

Unified description of galactic dynamics and the cosmological constant

We explore the phenomenology of a two-fluid cosmological model, where the field equations of general relativity (GR) are sourced by baryonic and cold dark matter. We find that the model allows for a unified description of small and large scale, late-time cosmological dynamics. Specifically, in the static regime we recover the flattening of galactic rotation curves by requiring the matter density profile to scale as $1/r^2$. The same behavior describes matter inhomogeneities distribution at small cosmological scales. This traces galactic dynamics back to structure formation. At large cosmological scales, we focus on back reaction effects of the spacetime geometry to the presence of matter inhomogeneities. We find that a cosmological constant with the observed order of magnitude, emerges by averaging the back reaction term on spatial scales of order 100 Mpc and it is related in a natural way to matter distribution. This provides a resolution to both the cosmological constant and the coincidence problems and shows the existence of an intriguing link between the small and large scale behavior in cosmology.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2020

Emergence of a Cosmological Constant in Anisotropic Fluid Cosmology

We investigate anisotropic fluid cosmology in a situation where the spacetime metric back-reacts in a local, time-dependent way to the presence of inhomogeneities. We derive exact solutions to the Einstein field equations describing Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) large scale cosmological evolution in the presence of local inhomogeneities and time-dependent back reaction. We use our derivation to tackle the cosmological constant problem. A cosmological constant emerges by averaging the back reaction term on spatial scales of the order of $100 \ \text{Mpc}$, at which our universe begins to appear homogeneous and isotropic. We find that the order of magnitude of the "emerged" cosmological constant agrees with astrophysical observations and is related in a natural way to baryonic matter density. Thus, there is no coincidence problem in our framework.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2020

Anisotropic Fluid Cosmology: an Alternative to Dark Matter?

We use anisotropic fluid cosmology to describe the present, dark energy-dominated, universe. Similarly to what has been proposed for galactic dynamics, the anisotropic fluid gives an effective description of baryonic matter, dark energy and their possible interaction, without assuming the presence of dark matter. The resulting anisotropic fluid spacetime naturally generates inhomogeneities at small scales, triggered by an anisotropic stress, and could therefore be responsible for structure formation at these scales. Solving the cosmological equations, we show that the dynamics of the scale factor $a$ is described by usual FLRW cosmology and decouples completely from that describing inhomogeneities. We assume that the cosmological anisotropic fluid inherits the equation of state from that used to describe galaxy rotation curves. We show that, in the large scale regime, the fluid can be described as a generalized Chaplygin gas and fits well the distance modulus experimental data of type Ia supernovae, thus correctly modelling the observed accelerated expansion of the universe. Conversely, in the small scale regime, we use cosmological perturbation theory to derive the power spectrum $P(k)$ for mass density distribution. At short wavelengths, we find a $1/k^4$ behaviour, in good accordance with the observed correlation function for matter distribution at small scales.

gr-qc↗