arXiv subjects

Mariano Cadoni

Publications and source records attributed to Mariano Cadoni.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Quasi-normal modes and microscopic description of 2D black holes

We investigate the possibility of using quasi-normal modes (QNMs) to probe the microscopic structure of two-dimensional (2D) anti-de Sitter (AdS$_2$) dilatonic black holes. We first extend previous results on the QNMs spectrum, found for external massless scalar perturbations, to the case of massive scalar perturbations. We find that the quasi-normal frequencies are purely imaginary and scale linearly with the overtone number. Motivated by this and extending previous results regarding Schwarzschild black holes, we propose a microscopic description of the 2D black hole in terms of a coherent state of $N$ massless particles quantized on a circle, with occupation numbers sharply peaked on the characteristic QNMs frequency $\hat ω$. We further model the black hole as a statistical ensemble of $N$ decoupled quantum oscillators of frequency $\hatω$. This allows us to recover the Bekenstein-Hawking (BH) entropy $S$ of the hole as the leading contribution to the Gibbs entropy for the set of oscillators, in the high-temperature regime, and to show that $S=N$. Additionally, we find sub-leading logarithmic corrections to the BH entropy. We further corroborate this microscopic description by outlining a holographic correspondence between QNMs in the AdS$_2$ bulk and the de Alfaro-Fubini-Furlan conformally invariant quantum mechanics. Our results strongly suggest that modelling a black hole as a coherent state of particles and as a statistical ensemble of decoupled harmonic oscillators is always a good approximation in the large black-hole mass, large overtone number limit.

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

Unitarity and Page curve for evaporation of 2D AdS black holes

We explore the Hawking evaporation of two-dimensional anti-de Sitter (AdS$_2$), dilatonic black hole coupled with conformal matter, and derive the Page curve for the entanglement entropy of radiation. We first work in a semiclassical approximation with backreaction. We show that the end-point of the evaporation process is AdS$_2$ with a vanishing dilaton, i.e. a regular, singularity-free, zero-entropy state. We explicitly compute the entanglement entropies of the black hole and the radiation, as functions of the horizon radius, using the conformal field theory (CFT) dual to AdS$_2$ gravity. We use a simplified toy model, in which evaporation is described by the forming and growing of a negative mass configuration in the positive-mass black hole interior. This is similar to the ``islands'' proposal, recently put forward to explain the Page curve for evaporating black holes. The resulting Page curve for AdS$_2$ black holes is in agreement with unitary evolution. The entanglement entropy of the radiation initially grows, closely following a thermal behavior, reaches a maximum at half-way of the evaporation process, and then goes down to zero, following the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of the black hole. Consistency of our simplified model requires a non-trivial identification of the central charge of the CFT describing AdS$_2$ gravity with the number of species of fields describing Hawking radiation.

hep-th↗

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

Size and timescale of epidemics in the SIR framework

The most important features to assess the severity of an epidemic are its size and its timescale. We discuss these features in a systematic way in the context of SIR and SIR-type models. We investigate in detail how the size and timescale of the epidemic can be changed by acting on the parameters characterizing the model. Using these results and having as guideline the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy, we compare the efficiency of different containment strategies for contrasting an epidemic diffusion such as social distancing, lockdown, tracing, early detection and isolation.

q-bio.PE↗

arXiv2020

How long does a lockdown need to be?

Social distancing, often in the form of lockdown, has been adopted by many countries as a way to contrast the spreading of COVID-19. We discuss the temporal aspects of social distancing in contrasting an epidemic diffusion. We argue that a strategy based uniquely on social distancing requires to maintain the relative measures for a very long time, while a more articulate strategy, which also uses early detection and prompt isolation, can be both more efficient on reducing the epidemic peak and allow to relax the social distancing measures after a much shorter time. We consider in more detail the situation in Italy, simulating the effect of different strategies through a recently introduced SIR-type epidemiological model. The short answer to the question in the title is: "it depends on what else you do".

q-bio.PE↗

arXiv2020

How to reduce epidemic peaks keeping under control the time-span of the epidemic

One of the main challenges of the measures against the COVID-19 epidemic is to reduce the amplitude of the epidemic peak without increasing without control its timescale. We investigate this problem using the SIR model for the epidemic dynamics, for which reduction of the epidemic peak $I_P$ can be achieved only at the price of increasing the time $t_P$ of its occurrence and its entire time-span $t_E$. By means of a time reparametrization we linearize the equations for the SIR dynamics. This allows us to solve exactly the dynamics in the time domain and to derive the scaling behaviour of the size, the timescale and the speed of the epidemics, by reducing the infection rate $α$ and by increasing the removal rate $β$ by a factor of $λ$. We show that for a given value of the size ($I_P$, the total, $I_E$ and average $\hat I_P$ number of infected), its occurrence time $t_P$ and entire time-span $t_E$ can be reduced by a factor $1/λ$ if the reduction of $I$ is achieved by increasing the removal rate instead of reducing the infection rate. Thus, epidemic containment measures based on tracing, early detection followed by prompt isolation of infected individuals are more efficient than those based on social distancing. We apply our results to the COVID-19 epidemic in Northern Italy. We show that the peak time $t_P$ and the entire time span $t_E$ could have been reduced by a factor $0.9 \le 1/λ\le 0.34$ with containment measures focused on increasing $β$ instead of reducing $α$.

q-bio.PE↗

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↗

arXiv2019

Galactic dynamics and long-range quantum gravity

We explore in a systematic way the possibility that long-range quantum gravity effects could play a role at galactic scales and could be responsible for the phenomenology commonly attributed to dark matter. We argue that the presence of baryonic matter breaks the scale symmetry of the de Sitter (dS) spacetime generating an IR scale $r_0$, corresponding to the scale at which the typical dark matter effects we observe in galaxies arise. It also generates a huge number of bosonic excitations with wavelength larger than the size of the cosmological horizon and in thermal equilibrium with dS spacetime. We show that for $r\gtrsim r_0$ these excitations produce a new component for the radial acceleration of stars in galaxies which leads to the result found by McGaugh {\sl et al.} by fitting a large amount of observational data and with the MOND theory. We also propose a generalized thermal equivalence principle and use it to give another independent derivation of our result. Finally, we show that our result can be also derived as the weak field limit of Einstein's general relativity sourced by an anisotropic fluid.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2019

A new perspective on galactic dynamics

We derive the radial acceleration of stars in galaxies by using basic features of thermodynamics, statistical mechanics and general relativity. We assume that the "dark" component of the radial acceleration is originated from the reaction of dark energy to the presence of baryonic matter. It can be also explained as the macroscopic manifestation of a huge number of extremely soft bosonic excitations of the dark energy medium with wavelength larger than the size of the cosmological horizon, in thermal equilibrium with de Sitter spacetime. Our formula agrees with the phenomenological relation proposed by McGaugh et al. which, in turns, fits a large amount of observational data and with the MOND theory. We also show that our formula appears as the weak field limit of Einstein's general relativity sourced by an anisotropic fluid.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2018

Sine-Gordon solitonic scalar stars and black holes

We study exact, analytic, static, spherically symmetric, four-dimensional solutions of minimally coupled Einstein-scalar gravity, sourced by a scalar field whose profile has the form of the sine-Gordon soliton. We present a horizonless, everywhere regular and positive-mass solution (a solitonic star) and a black hole. The scalar potential behaves as a constant near the origin and vanishes at infinity. In particular, the solitonic scalar star interpolates between an anti-de Sitter and an asympototically flat spacetime. The black-hole spacetime is unstable against linear perturbations, while due to numerical issues, we were not able to determine with confidence whether or not the star-like background solution is stable.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2018

Emergence of a Dark Force in Corpuscular Gravity

We investigate the emergent laws of gravity when Dark Energy and the de Sitter space-time are modelled as a critical Bose-Einstein condensate of a large number of soft gravitons $N_{\rm G}$. We argue that this scenario requires the presence of various regimes of gravity in which $N_{\rm G}$ scales in different ways. Moreover, the local gravitational interaction affecting baryonic matter can be naturally described in terms of gravitons pulled out from this Dark Energy condensate (DEC). We then explain the additional component of the acceleration at galactic scales, commonly attributed to dark matter, as the reaction of the DEC to the presence of baryonic matter. This additional dark force is also associated to gravitons pulled out from the DEC and correctly reproduces the MOND acceleration. It also allows for an effective description in terms of General Relativity sourced by an anisotropic fluid. We finally calculate the mass ratio between the contribution of the apparent dark matter and the baryonic matter in a region of size $r$ at galactic scales and show that it is consistent with the $Λ$CDM predictions.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2018

Van der Waals-like Behaviour of Charged Black Holes and Hysteresis in the Dual QFTs

Using the rules of the AdS/CFT correspondence, we compute the spherical analogue of the shear viscosity, defined in terms of the retarded Green function for the stress-energy tensor for QFTs dual to five-dimensional charged black holes of general relativity with a negative cosmological constant. We show that the ratio between this quantity and the entropy density, $\tildeη/s$, exhibits a temperature-dependent hysteresis. We argue that this hysteretic behaviour can be explained by the Van der Waals-like character of charged black holes, considered as thermodynamical systems. Under the critical charge, hysteresis emerges owing to the presence of two stable states (small and large black holes) connected by a meta-stable region (intermediate black holes). A potential barrier prevents the equilibrium path between the two stable states; the system evolution must occur through the meta-stable region, and a path-dependence of $\tildeη/s$ is generated.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

Hysteresis in $η/s$ for QFTs dual to spherical black holes

We define and compute the (analogue) shear viscosity to entropy density ratio $\tildeη/s$ for the QFTs dual to spherical AdS black holes both in Einstein and Gauss-Bonnet gravity in five spacetime dimensions. Although in this case, owing to the lack of translational symmetry of the background, $\tildeη$ does not have the usual hydrodynamic meaning, it can be still interpreted as the rate of entropy production due to a strain. At large and small temperatures, it is found that $\tildeη/s$ is a monotonic increasing function of the temperature. In particular, at large temperatures it approaches a constant value, whereas, at small temperatures, when the black hole has a regular, stable extremal limit, $\tildeη/s$ goes to zero with scaling law behaviour. Whenever the phase diagram of the black hole has a Van der Waals-like behaviour, i.e. it is characterised by the presence of two stable states (small and large black holes) connected by a meta-stable region (intermediate black holes), the system evolution must occur through the meta-stable region and temperature-dependent hysteresis of $\tildeη/s$ is generated by non-equilibrium thermodynamics.

hep-th↗

arXiv2017

Effective Fluid Description of the Dark Universe

We propose an effective anisotropic fluid description for a generic infrared-modified theory of gravity. In our framework, the additional component of the acceleration, commonly attributed to dark matter, is explained as a radial pressure generated by the reaction of the dark energy fluid to the presence of baryonic matter. Using quite general assumptions, and a microscopic description of the fluid in terms of a Bose-Einstein condensate of gravitons, we find the static, spherically symmetric solution for the metric in terms of the Misner-Sharp mass function and the fluid pressure. At galactic scales, we correctly reproduce the leading MOND-like $\log(r)$ and subleading $(1/r)\,\log(r)$ terms in the weak-field expansion of the potential. Our description also predicts a tiny (of order $10^{-6}$ for a typical spiral galaxy) Machian modification of the Newtonian potential at galactic scales, which is controlled by the cosmological acceleration.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2017

Symmetries, Holography and Quantum Phase Transition in Two-dimensional Dilaton AdS Gravity

We present a revisitation of the Almheiri-Polchinski dilaton gravity model from a two-dimensional (2D) bulk perspective. We describe a peculiar feature of the model, namely the pattern of conformal symmetry breaking using bulk Killing vectors, a covariant definition of mass and the flow between different vacua of the theory. We show that the effect of the symmetry breaking is both the generation of an infrared scale (a mass gap) and to make local the Goldstone modes associated with the asymptotic symmetries of the 2D spacetime. In this way a non vanishing central charge is generated in the dual conformal theory, which accounts for the microscopic entropy of the 2D black hole. The use of covariant mass allows to compare energetically the two different vacua of the theory and to show that at zero temperature the vacuum with a constant dilaton is energetically preferred. We also translate in the bulk language several features of the dual CFT discussed by Maldacena et al. The uplifting of the 2D model to $(d+2)-$dimensional theories exhibiting hyperscaling violation is briefly discussed.

hep-th↗

arXiv2017

How is the Presence of Horizons and Localized Matter Encoded in the Entanglement Entropy?

Motivated by the new theoretical paradigm that views spacetime geometry as emerging from the entanglement of a pre-geometric theory, we investigate the issue of the signature of the presence of horizons and localized matter on the entanglement entropy (EE) S_E for the case of three-dimensional AdS (AdS_3) gravity. We use the holographically dual two-dimensional CFT on the torus and the related modular symmetry in order to treat bulk black holes and conical singularities (sourced by pointlike masses not shielded by horizons) on the same footing. In the regime where boundary tori can be approximated by cylinders we are able to give universal expressions for the EE of black holes and conical singularities. We argue that the presence of horizons/localized matter in the bulk is encoded in the EE in terms of (i) enhancement/reduction of the entanglement of the AdS_3 vacuum, (ii) scaling as area/volume of the leading term of the perturbative expansion of S_E, (iii) exponential/periodic behaviour of S_E, (iv) presence of unaccessible regions in the noncompact/compact dimension of the boundary cylinder. In particular, we show that the reduction effect of matter on the entanglement of the vacuum found by Verlinde for the de Sitter vacuum extends to the AdS_3 vacuum

hep-th↗