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Benoît Gay

Publications and source records attributed to Benoît Gay.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Towards Gravitational Wave Turbulence within the Hadad-Zakharov metric

The theory of gravitational wave turbulence describes the long-term statistical behaviour of a set of weakly nonlinear interacting waves. In this paper, we aim to study aspects of gravitational turbulence within the framework of general relativity using the Hadad-Zakharov (HZ) metric. The latter is parameterised by four functions (the coefficients of a diagonal metric) that must satisfy seven non-trivial Einstein equations, six of which are independent. The issue of their mutual compatibility is therefore essential, yet it has so far been overlooked. In this work, we argue that these equations can be compatible in the weakly nonlinear regime under specific conditions. Our analytical investigation is complemented by direct numerical simulations performed with a new GPU-based code, TIGER. A comparative analysis of the evolution of the Ricci and Kretschmann scalars indicates that gravitational wave turbulence corresponds to the propagation of a genuine physical degree of freedom. These numerical findings, however, must be interpreted with caution, given the difficulty of satisfying all seven Einstein equations simultaneously with sufficient accuracy. On the other hand, our simulations reproduce well the expected properties of the wave turbulence regime, with the emergence of a dual cascade of energy and wave action, and for the latter the observation of the Kolmogorov-Zakharov spectrum. In addition, our analysis reveals that the canonical variables of the problem evolve towards a nearly Gaussian statistical distribution punctuated by intermittent coherent (spatially localised and long-living) structures. In contrast to the canonical variables, the structure functions of the gauge-invariant metric components exhibit monofractal behaviour, which is a classical property of wave turbulence.

gr-qc

Asymmetric dual cascade in gravitational wave turbulence

We numerically simulate, in both the forced and decay regimes, a fourth-order nonlinear diffusion equation derived from the kinetic equation of gravitational wave turbulence in the limit of strongly local quartic interactions. When a forcing is applied to an intermediate wavenumber $k_i$, we observe a dual cascade of energy and wave action. In the stationary state, the associated flux ratio is proportional to $k_i$, and the Kolmogorov-Zakharov spectra are recovered. In decaying turbulence, the study reveals that the wave action spectrum can extend to wavenumbers greater than the initial excitation $k_i$ with constant negative flux, while the energy flux is positive with a power law dependence in $k$. This leads to an unexpected result: a single inertial range with a Kolmogorov-Zakharov wave action spectrum extending progressively to wavenumbers larger than $k_i$. We also observe a wave action decay in time in $t^{-1/3}$ while the front of the energy spectrum progresses according to a $t^{1/3}$ law. These properties can be understood with simple theoretical arguments.

gr-qc

Gravitational wave turbulence: a multiple time scale approach for quartic wave interactions

Wave turbulence is by nature a multiple time scale problem for which there is a natural asymptotic closure. The main result of this analytical theory is the kinetic equation that describes the long-time statistical behaviour of such turbulence composed of a set of weakly nonlinear interacting waves. In the case of gravitational waves, it involves four-wave interactions and two invariants, energy and wave action. Although the kinetic equation of gravitational wave turbulence has been published with the Hadad-Zakharov metric, along with their physical properties, the detailed derivation has not been shown. Following the seminal work of Newell (1968) for gravity/surface waves, we present the multiple time scale method, rarely used to derive the kinetic equations, and clarify the underlying assumptions and methodology. This formalism is applied to a wave amplitude equation obtained using an Eulerian approach. It leads to a kinetic equation slightly different from the one originally published, with a wave equation obtained using a Hamiltonian approach; we verify, however, that the two formulations are fully compatible when the number of symmetries used is the same. We also show that the exact solutions (Kolmogorov-Zakharov spectra) exhibit the same power laws and cascade directions. Furthermore, the use of the multiple time scale method reveals that the system retains the memory of the initially condition up to a certain level (second order) of development in time.

gr-qc