arXiv subjects

Bayram Tekin

Publications and source records attributed to Bayram Tekin.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Minimal Extension of Einstein's Theory: The Quartic Gravity

We study structure of solutions of the recently constructed minimal extensions of Einstein's gravity in four dimensions at the quartic curvature level. The extended higher derivative theory, just like Einstein's gravity, has only a massless spin-two graviton about its unique maximally symmetric vacuum. The extended theory does not admit the Schwarzschild or Kerr metrics as exact solutions, hence there is no issue of Schwarzschild type singularity but, approximately, outside a source, spherically symmetric metric with the correct Newtonian limit is recovered. We also show that for all Einstein space-times, square of the Riemann tensor (the Kretschmann scalar or the Gauss-Bonnet invariant) obeys a non-linear scalar Klein-Gordon equation.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Asymptotically flat black holes in 2+1 dimensions

Asymptotically flat black holes in $2+1$ dimensions are a rarity. We study the recently found black flower solutions (asymptotically flat black holes with deformed horizons), static black holes, rotating black holes and the dynamical black flowers (black holes with radiative gravitons ) of the purely quadratic version of new massive gravity. We show how they appear in this theory and we also show that they are also solutions to the infinite order extended version of the new massive gravity, that is the Born-Infeld extension of new massive gravity with an amputated Einsteinian piece. The same metrics also solve the topologically extended versions of these theories, with modified conserved charges and the thermodynamical quantities, such as the Wald entropy. Besides these we find new conformally flat radiating type solutions to these extended gravity models. We also show that these metrics do not arise in Einstein's gravity coupled to physical perfect fluids.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Stern-Gerlach Experiment with Higher Spins

We analyze idealized sequential Stern-Gerlach experiments with higher spin particles. This analysis serves at least two purposes: The widely discussed spin-1/2 case leads to some misunderstandings which hopefully is removed by the higher spin discussion. Secondly, Wigner rotation matrices for generic spins become conceptually more transparent with this physical example. We also give compact formulas for the probabilities in terms of the angle between the sequential SG apparatuses for generic spins. We work out the spin-$1/2$, spin-$1$ and spin-$2$ cases explicitly. Since there are some confusing issues regarding the actual experiment, we also compile a "facts and fiction" section on the SG experiments.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2016

Inflation in pure gravity with only massless spin-2 fields

We show that without introducing additional fields or extra degrees of freedom, a specific higher derivative extension of Einstein's gravity that has only a massless spin-2 excitation in its perturbative spectrum, has an inflationary period, a quasi-de Sitter phase with enough number of e-foldings required to solve the horizon and related problems. The crucial ingredient in the construction is the curvature dependence of the effective Newton's constant.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2016

Holographically Viable Extensions of Topologically Massive and Minimal Massive Gravity?

Recently, an extension of the topologically massive gravity (TMG) in $2+1$ dimensions, dubbed as minimal massive gravity (MMG), was found which is free of the bulk-boundary unitarity clash that inflicts the former theory and all the other known three dimensional theories. Field equations of MMG differ from those of TMG at quadratic terms in the curvature that do not come from the variation of an action depending on the metric alone. Here we show that MMG is a unique theory and there does not exist a deformation of TMG or MMG at the cubic and quartic order (and beyond) in the curvature that is consistent at the level of the field equations. The only extension of TMG with the desired bulk and boundary properties having a single massive degree of freedom is MMG.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Gravitomagnetism in Massive Gravity

Massive gravity in the weak field limit is described by the Fierz-Pauli theory with 5 degrees of freedom in four dimensions. In this theory, we calculate the gravitomagnetic effects (potential energy) between two point-like, spinning sources that also orbit around each other in the limit where the spins and the velocities are small. Spin-spin, spin-orbit and orbit-orbit interactions in massive gravity theory have rather remarkable, discrete differences from their counterparts in General Relativity. Our computation is applicable for large distances, for example, for interaction between galaxies or galaxy clusters where massive gravity is expected to play a role. We also extend the computations to quadratic gravity theories in four dimensions and find the lowest order gravitomagnetic effects and show that at small separations quadratic gravity behaves differently than General Relativity.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Born-Infeld Gravity with a Unique Vacuum and a Massless Graviton

We construct an n-dimensional Born-Infeld type gravity theory that has the same properties as Einstein's gravity in terms of the vacuum and particle content: Namely, the theory has a unique viable vacuum (maximally symmetric solution) and a single massless unitary spin-2 graviton about this vacuum. The BI gravity, in some sense, is the most natural, minimal generalization of Einstein's gravity with a better UV behavior, and hence, is a potentially viable proposal for low energy quantum gravity. The Gauss-Bonnet combination plays a non-trivial role in the construction of the theory. As an extreme example, we consider the infinite dimensional limit where an interesting exponential gravity arises.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Gravity Waves in Three Dimensions

We find the explicit forms of the anti-de Sitter plane, anti-de Sitter spherical, and pp waves that solve both the linearized and exact field equations of the most general higher derivative gravity theory in three dimensions. As a sub-class, we work out the six derivative theory and the critical version of it where the masses of the two spin-2 excitations vanish and the spin-0 excitations decouple.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Bulk and Boundary Unitary Gravity in 3D: MMG$_2$

We construct a massive spin-2 theory in 2+1 dimensions that is immune to the bulk-boundary unitarity conflict in anti-de Sitter space and hence amenable to holography. The theory is an extension of Topologically Massive Gravity, just like the recently found Minimal Massive Gravity (MMG), but it has two massive helicity modes instead of a single one. The theory admits all the solutions of TMG with a redefined topological parameter. We calculate the Shapiro time-delay and show that flat-space (local) causality is not violated. We show that there is an interesting relation between the theory we present here (which we call MMG$_2$), MMG and the earlier New Massive Gravity (NMG): Namely, field equations of these theories are non-trivially related. We study the bulk excitations and boundary charges of the conformal field theory that could be dual to gravity. We also find the chiral gravity limit for which one of the massive modes becomes massless. The virtue of the model is that one does not have to go to the chiral limit to achieve unitarity in the bulk and on the boundary and the log-terms that appear in the chiral limit and cause instability do not exist in the generic theory.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

More on Cotton Flow

Cotton flow tends to evolve a given initial metric on a three manifold to a conformally flat one. Here we expound upon the earlier work on Cotton flow and study the linearized version of it around a generic initial metric by employing a modified form of the DeTurck trick. We show that the flow around the flat space, as a critical point, reduces to an anisotropic generalization of linearized KdV equation with complex dispersion relations one of which is an unstable mode, rendering the flat space unstable under small perturbations. We also show that Einstein spaces and some conformally flat non-Einstein spaces are linearly unstable. We refine the gradient flow formalism and compute the second variation of the entropy and show that generic critical points are extended Cotton solitons. We study some properties of these solutions and find a Topologically Massive soliton that is built from Cotton and Ricci solitons. In the Lorentzian signature, we also show that the pp-wave metrics are both Cotton and Ricci solitons.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

On Exact Solutions and the Consistency of 3D Minimal Massive Gravity

We show that all algebraic Type-O, Type-N and Type-D and some Kundt-Type solutions of Topologically Massive Gravity are inherited by its holographically well-defined deformation, that is the recently found Minimal Massive Gravity. This construction provides a large class of constant scalar curvature solutions to the theory. We also study the consistency of the field equations both in the source-free and matter-coupled cases. Since the field equations of MMG do not come from a Lagrangian that depends on the metric and its derivatives only, it lacks the Bianchi identity valid for all non-singular metrics. But it turns out that for the solutions of the equations, Bianchi identity is satisfied. This is a necessary condition for the consistency of the classical field equations but not a sufficient one, since the the rank-two tensor equations are susceptible to double-divergence. We show that for the source-free case the double-divergence of the field equations vanish for the solutions. In the matter-coupled case, we show that the double-divergence of the left-hand side and the right-hand side are equal to each other for the solutions of the theory. This construction completes the proof of the the consistency of the field equations.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

AdS-plane wave and pp-wave solutions of generic gravity theories

We construct the AdS-plane wave solutions of generic gravity theory built on the arbitrary powers of the Riemann tensor and its derivatives in analogy with the pp-wave solutions. In constructing the wave solutions of the generic theory, we show that the most general two tensor built from the Riemann tensor and its derivatives can be written in terms of the traceless-Ricci tensor. Quadratic gravity theory plays a major role; therefore, we revisit the wave solutions in this theory. As examples to our general formalism, we work out the six-dimensional conformal gravity and its nonconformal deformation as well as the tricritical gravity, the Lanczos-Lovelock theory, and string-generated cubic curvature theory.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Born-Infeld Gravity with a Massless Graviton in Four Dimensions

We construct Born-Infeld (BI) type gravity theories which describe tree-level unitary (non-ghost and non-tachyonic) massless spin-2 modes around their maximally symmetric vacua in four dimensions. Building unitary BI actions around flat vacuum is straightforward; but, this is a complicated task around (anti)-de Sitter backgrounds. In this work, we solve the issue and give details of constructing perturbatively viable determinantal BI theories. It is interesting that the Gauss-Bonnet combination, which is a total derivative in four dimensions, plays an important role in the construction of viable BI theories.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Minimal Massive Gravity: Conserved Charges, Excitations and the Chiral Gravity Limit

We find the excitations and construct the conserved charges ( mass and angular momentum) of the recently found Minimal Massive Gravity (MMG) in 2+1 dimensions in asymptotically Anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetimes. The field equation of the theory does not come from an action and hence lacks the required Bianchi Identity needed to define conserved charges. But the theory, which also provides a healthy extension of the Topologically Massive Gravity in the bulk and boundary of spacetime, does admit conserved charges for metric that are solutions. Our construction is based on background Killing vectors and imperative to provide physical meaning to the integration constants in the black hole type metrics. We also study the chiral gravity limit of MMG.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

Spin-Spin Interactions in Massive Gravity and Higher Derivative Gravity Theories

We show that, in the weak field limit, at large separations, in sharp contrast to General Relativity (GR), all massive gravity theories predict distance-dependent spin alignments for spinning objects. For all separations GR requires anti-parallel spin orientations with spins pointing along the line joining the sources. Hence total spin is minimized in GR. On the other hand, while massive gravity at small separations ($m_gr \le1.62$) gives the same result as GR, for large separations ($m_gr>1.62$) the spins become parallel to each other and perpendicular to the line joining the objects. Namely, the potential energy is minimized when the total spin is maximized in massive gravity for large separations. We also compute the spin-spin interactions in quadratic gravity theories and find that while at large separations GR result is intact, at small separations, spins become perpendicular to the line joining sources and anti-parallel to each other.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

Scattering in Topologically Massive Gravity, Chiral Gravity and the corresponding Anyon-Anyon Potential Energy

We compute the tree-level scattering amplitude between two covariantly conserved sources in generic Cosmological Topologically Massive Gravity augmented with a Fierz-Pauli term that has three massive degrees of freedom. We consider the Chiral Gravity limit in the anti-de Sitter space as well as the limit of Flat-Space Chiral Gravity. We show that Chiral Gravity cannot be unitarily deformed with a Fierz-Pauli mass. We calculate the non-relativistic potential energy between two point-like spinning sources. In addition to the expected mass-mass and spin-spin interactions, there are mass-spin interactions due to the presence of the gravitational Chern-Simons term which induces spin for any massive object and turns it to an anyon. We also show that the tree-level scattering is trivial for the Flat-Space Chiral Gravity.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

AdS-Wave Solutions of f(Riemann) Theories

We show that the recently found AdS-plane and AdS-spherical wave solutions of quadratic curvature gravity also solve the most general higher derivative theory in D-dimensions. More generally, we show that the field equations of such theories reduce to an equation linear in the Ricci tensor for Kerr-Schild spacetimes having type-N Weyl and traceless Ricci tensors.

hep-th↗

arXiv2012

Weyl-gauging of Topologically Massive Gravity

We construct a Weyl-invariant extension of topologically massive gravity which, remarkably, turns out to include topologically massive electrodynamics, with a Proca mass term, conformally coupled to a scalar field. The action has no dimensionful parameters, therefore, the masses are generated via symmetry breaking either radiatively in flat backgrounds or spontaneously in constant curvature backgrounds. The broken phase of the theory, generically, has a single massive spin-2 and a massive spin-1 excitation. Chiral gravity in asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetimes does not arise as a low energy theory, while chiral gravity in de Sitter spacetime is not ruled out.

hep-th↗