arXiv subjects

Richard Brito

Publications and source records attributed to Richard Brito.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Black-hole Spectroscopy by Making Full Use of Gravitational-Wave Modeling

The Kerr nature of a compact-object-coalescence remnant can be unveiled by observing multiple quasi-normal modes (QNMs) in the post-merger signal. Current methods to achieve this goal rely on matching the data with a superposition of exponentially damped sinusoids with amplitudes fitted to numerical-relativity (NR) simulations of binary black-hole (BBH) mergers. These models presume the ability to correctly estimate the time at which the gravitational-wave (GW) signal starts to be dominated by the QNMs of a perturbed BH. Here we show that this difficulty can be overcome by using multipolar inspiral-merger-ringdown waveforms, calibrated to NR simulations, as already developed within the effective-one-body formalism (EOBNR). We build a parameterized (nonspinning) EOBNR waveform model in which the QNM complex frequencies are free parameters (pEOBNR), and use Bayesian analysis to study its effectiveness in measuring QNMs in GW150914, and in synthetic GW signals of BBHs injected in Gaussian noise. We find that using the pEOBNR model gives, in general, stronger constraints compared to the ones obtained when using a sum of damped sinusoids and using Bayesian model selection, we also show that the pEOBNR model can successfully be employed to find evidence for deviations from General Relativity in the ringdown signal. Since the pEOBNR model properly includes time and phase shifts among QNMs, it is also well suited to consistently combine information from several observations --- e.g., we find on the order of $\sim 30$ GW150914-like BBH events would be needed for Advanced LIGO and Virgo at design sensitivity to measure the fundamental frequencies of both the $(2,2)$ and $(3,3)$ modes, and the decay time of the $(2,2)$ mode with an accuracy of $\lesssim 5\%$ at the $2\mbox{-}σ$ level, thus allowing to test the BH's no-hair conjecture.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2018

The stochastic gravitational-wave background in the absence of horizons

Gravitational-wave astronomy has the potential to explore one of the deepest and most puzzling aspects of Einstein's theory: the existence of black holes. A plethora of ultracompact, horizonless objects have been proposed to arise in models inspired by quantum gravity. These objects may solve Hawking's information-loss paradox and the singularity problem associated with black holes, while mimicking almost all of their classical properties. They are, however, generically unstable on relatively short timescales. Here, we show that this "ergoregion instability" leads to a strong stochastic background of gravitational waves, at a level detectable by current and future gravitational-wave detectors. The absence of such background in the first observation run of Advanced LIGO already imposes the most stringent limits to date on black-hole alternatives, showing that certain models of "quantum-dressed" stellar black holes can be at most a small percentage of the total population. The future LISA mission will allow for similar constraints on supermassive black-hole mimickers.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2017

Gravitational wave searches for ultralight bosons with LIGO and LISA

Ultralight bosons can induce superradiant instabilities in spinning black holes, tapping their rotational energy to trigger the growth of a bosonic condensate. Possible observational imprints of these boson clouds include (i) direct detection of the nearly monochromatic (resolvable or stochastic) gravitational waves emitted by the condensate, and (ii) statistically significant evidence for the formation of "holes" at large spins in the spin versus mass plane (sometimes also referred to as "Regge plane") of astrophysical black holes. In this work, we focus on the prospects of LISA and LIGO detecting or constraining scalars with mass in the range $m_s\in [10^{-19},\,10^{-15}]$ eV and $m_s\in [10^{-14},\,10^{-11}]$ eV, respectively. Using astrophysical models of black-hole populations calibrated to observations and black-hole perturbation theory calculations of the gravitational emission, we find that, in optimistic scenarios, LIGO could observe a stochastic background of gravitational radiation in the range $m_s\in [2\times 10^{-13}, 10^{-12}]$ eV, and up to $10^4$ resolvable events in a $4$-year search if $m_s\sim 3\times 10^{-13}\,{\rm eV}$. LISA could observe a stochastic background for boson masses in the range $m_s\in [5\times 10^{-19}, 5\times 10^{-16}]$, and up to $\sim 10^3$ resolvable events in a $4$-year search if $m_s\sim 10^{-17}\,{\rm eV}$. LISA could further measure spins for black-hole binaries with component masses in the range $[10^3, 10^7]~M_\odot$, which is not probed by traditional spin-measurement techniques. A statistical analysis of the spin distribution of these binaries could either rule out scalar fields in the mass range $\sim [4 \times 10^{-18}, 10^{-14}]$ eV, or measure $m_s$ with ten percent accuracy if light scalars in the mass range $\sim [10^{-17}, 10^{-13}]$ eV exist.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2017

Stochastic and resolvable gravitational waves from ultralight bosons

Ultralight scalar fields around spinning black holes can trigger superradiant instabilities, forming a long-lived bosonic condensate outside the horizon. We use numerical solutions of the perturbed field equations and astrophysical models of massive and stellar-mass black hole populations to compute, for the first time, the stochastic gravitational-wave background from these sources. In optimistic scenarios the background is observable by Advanced LIGO and LISA for field masses $m_s$ in the range $\sim [2\times 10^{-13}, 10^{-12}]\,{\rm eV}$ and $\sim 5\times[ 10^{-19}, 10^{-16}]\,{\rm eV}$, respectively, and it can affect the detectability of resolvable sources. Our estimates suggest that an analysis of the stochastic background limits from LIGO O1 might already be used to marginally exclude axions with mass $\sim 10^{-12.5}{\rm eV}$. Semicoherent searches with Advanced LIGO (LISA) should detect $\sim 15~(5)$ to $200~(40)$ resolvable sources for scalar field masses $3\times 10^{-13}$ ($10^{-17}$) eV. LISA measurements of massive BH spins could either rule out bosons in the range $\sim [10^{-18}, 2\times 10^{-13}]$ eV, or measure $m_s$ with ten percent accuracy in the range $\sim[10^{-17}, 10^{-13}]$ eV.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2016

Asymptotically anti-de Sitter Proca Stars

We show that complex, massive spin-1 fields minimally coupled to Einstein's gravity with a negative cosmological constant, admit asymptotically anti-de Sitter self-gravitating solutions. Focusing on 4-dimensional spacetimes, we start by obtaining analytical solutions in the test-field limit, where the Proca field equations can be solved in a fixed anti-de Sitter background, and then find fully non-linear solutions numerically. These solutions are a natural extension of the recently found asymptotically flat Proca stars and share similar properties with scalar boson stars. In particular, we show that they are stable against spherically symmetric linear perturbations for a range of fundamental frequencies limited by their point of maximum mass. We finish with an overview of the behavior of Proca stars in $5$ dimensions.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2016

Linear stability of nonbidiagonal black holes in massive gravity

We consider generic linear perturbations of a nonbidiagonal class of static black-hole solutions in massive (bi)gravity. We show that the quasinormal spectrum of these solutions coincides with that of a Schwarzschild black hole in general relativity, thus proving that these solutions are mode stable. This is in contrast to the case of bidiagonal black-hole solutions which are affected by a radial instability. On the other hand, the full set of perturbation equations is generically richer than that of a Schwarzschild black hole in general relativity, and this affects the linear response of the black hole to external perturbations. Finally, we argue that the generalization of these solutions to the spinning case does not suffer from the superradiant instability, despite the fact that the theory describes a massive graviton.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2016

Two worlds collide: Interacting shells in AdS spacetime and chaos

We study the simplest two-body problem in asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetime: two, infinitely thin, concentric spherical shells of matter. We include only gravitational interaction between the two shells, but we show that the dynamics of this system is highly nontrivial. We observe prompt collapse to a black hole, delayed collapse and even perpetual oscillatory motion, depending on the initial location of the shells (or their energy content). The system exhibits critical behavior, and we show strong hints that it is also chaotic.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Fundamental fields around compact objects: Massive spin-2 fields, Superradiant instabilities and Stars with dark matter cores

Fundamental bosonic fields of arbitrary spin are predicted by generic extensions of the Standard Model and of General Relativity, and are well-motivated candidates to explain the dark components of the Universe. One of most promising channels to look for their presence is through their gravitational interaction with compact objects. Within this context, in this thesis I study several mechanisms by which bosonic fields may affect the dynamics and structure of black holes and neutron stars. The first part of the thesis is devoted to the study of massive spin-2 fields around spherically symmetric black-hole spacetimes. Massive spin-2 fields can be consistently described within theories of massive gravity, making it possible to perform a systematic study of the propagation of these fields in curved spacetimes. In particular, I show that due to the presence of additional degrees of freedom in these theories, the structure of black-hole solutions is richer than in General Relativity. In the second part of the thesis, I discuss in detail superradiant instabilities in the context of black-hole physics. I show that several mechanisms, such as massive bosonic fields and magnetic fields, can turn spinning black holes unstable against superradiant modes, which has important implications for astrophysics and for physics beyond the Standard Model. In the last part of this thesis, I present a study of how bosonic dark matter condensates interact gravitationally with compact stars. In particular, I show that stable stellar configurations formed by a perfect fluid and a bosonic condensate exist and can describe the late stages of dark matter accretion onto stars, in dark matter rich environments.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2016

Interaction between bosonic dark matter and stars

We provide a detailed analysis of how bosonic dark matter "condensates" interact with compact stars, extending significantly the results of a recent Letter. We focus on bosonic fields with mass $m_B$, such as axions, axion-like candidates and hidden photons. Self-gravitating bosonic fields generically form "breathing" configurations, where both the spacetime geometry and the field oscillate, and can interact and cluster at the center of stars. We construct stellar configurations formed by a perfect fluid and a bosonic condensate, and which may describe the late stages of dark-matter accretion onto stars, in dark matter-rich environments. These composite stars oscillate at a frequency which is a multiple of $f=2.5\times 10^{14}\,\left(m_{B}c^2/eV\right)\,{\rm Hz}$. Using perturbative analysis and Numerical Relativity techniques, we show that these stars are generically stable, and we provide criteria for instability. Our results also indicate that the growth of the dark matter core is halted close to the Chandrasekhar limit. We thus dispel a myth concerning dark matter accretion by stars: dark mater accretion does not necessarily lead to the destruction of the star, nor to collapse to a black hole. Finally, we argue that stars with long-lived bosonic cores may also develop in other theories with effective mass couplings, such as (massless) scalar-tensor theories.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2015

Accretion of dark matter by stars

Searches for dark matter imprints are one of the most active areas of current research. We focus here on light fields with mass $m_B$, such as axions and axion-like candidates. Using perturbative techniques and full-blown nonlinear Numerical Relativity methods, we show that (i) dark matter can pile up in the center of stars, leading to configurations and geometries oscillating with frequency which is a multiple of f=$2.5 10^{14}$ $m_B c^2$/eV Hz. These configurations are stable throughout most of the parameter space, and arise out of credible mechanisms for dark-matter capture. Stars with bosonic cores may also develop in other theories with effective mass couplings, such as (massless) scalar-tensor theories. We also show that (ii) collapse of the host star to a black hole is avoided by efficient gravitational cooling mechanisms.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2015

Proca Stars: gravitating Bose-Einstein condensates of massive spin 1 particles

We establish that massive complex Abelian vector fields (mass $μ$) can form gravitating solitons, when minimally coupled to Einstein's gravity. Such Proca stars (PSs) have a stationary, everywhere regular and asymptotically flat geometry. The Proca field, however, possesses a harmonic time dependence (frequency $w$), realizing Wheeler's concept of geons for an Abelian spin 1 field. We obtain PSs with both a spherically symmetric (static) and an axially symmetric (stationary) line element. The latter form a countable number of families labelled by an integer $m\in \mathbb{Z}^+$. PSs, like (scalar) boson stars, carry a conserved Noether charge, and are akin to the latter in many ways. In particular, both types of stars exist for a limited range of frequencies and there is a maximal ADM mass, $M_{max}$, attained for an intermediate frequency. For spherically symmetric PSs (rotating PSs with $m=1,2,3$), $M_{max}\simeq 1.058 M_{Pl}^2/μ$ ($M_{max}\simeq 1.568,\, 2.337, \, 3.247 \, M_{Pl}^2/μ$), slightly larger values than those for (mini-)boson stars. We establish perturbative stability for a subset of solutions in the spherical case and anticipate a similar conclusion for fundamental modes in the rotating case. The discovery of PSs opens many avenues of research, reconsidering five decades of work on (scalar) boson stars, in particular as possible dark matter candidates.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2015

Black holes in massive gravity

We review the black hole solutions of the ghost-free massive gravity theory and its bimetric extension and outline the main results on the stability of these solutions against small perturbations. Massive (bi)-gravity accommodates exact black hole solutions, analogous to those of General Relativity. In addition to these solutions, hairy black holes -- solutions with no correspondent in General Relativity -- have been found numerically, whose existence is a natural consequence of the absence of Birkhoff's theorem in these theories. The existence of extra propagating degrees of freedom, makes the stability properties of these black holes richer and more complex than those of General Relativity. In particular, the bi-Schwarzschild black hole exhibits an unstable spherically symmetric mode, while the bi-Kerr geometry is also generically unstable, both against the spherical mode and against superradiant instabilities. If astrophysical black holes are described by these solutions, the superradiant instability of the Kerr solution imposes stringent bounds on the graviton mass.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2015

Superradiance in stars

It has long been known that dissipation is a crucial ingredient in the superradiant amplification of wavepackets off rotating objects. We show that, once appropriate dissipation mechanisms are included, stars are also prone to superradiance and superradiant instabilities. In particular, ultra-light dark matter with small interaction cross section with the star material or self-annihilation can trigger a superradiant instability. On long timescales, the instability strips the star of most of its angular momentum. Whether or not new stationary configurations surrounded by scalar condensates exist, remains to be seen.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2015

Ultra-high-energy debris from the collisional Penrose process

Soon after the discovery of the Kerr metric, Penrose realized that superradiance can be exploited to extract energy from black holes. The original idea (involving the breakup of a single particle) yields only modest energy gains. A variant of the Penrose process consists of particle collisions in the ergoregion. The collisional Penrose process has been explored recently in the context of dark matter searches, with the conclusion that the ratio $η$ between the energy of post-collision particles detected at infinity and the energy of the colliding particles should be modest ($η\lesssim 1.5$). Schnittman has shown that these studies underestimated the maximum efficiency by about one order of magnitude (i.e., $η\lesssim 15$). In this work we show that particle collisions in the vicinity of rapidly rotating black holes can produce high-energy ejecta and result in high efficiencies under much more generic conditions. The astrophysical likelihood of these events deserves further scrutiny, but our study hints at the tantalizing possibility that the collisional Penrose process may power gamma rays and ultra-high-energy cosmic rays.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2014

Black holes as particle detectors: evolution of superradiant instabilities

Superradiant instabilities of spinning black holes can be used to impose strong constraints on ultralight bosons, thus turning black holes into effective particle detectors. However, very little is known about the development of the instability and whether its nonlinear time evolution accords to the linear intuition. For the first time, we attack this problem by studying the impact of gravitational-wave emission and gas accretion on the evolution of the instability. Our quasi-adiabatic, fully-relativistic analysis shows that: (i) gravitational-wave emission does not have a significant effect on the evolution of the black hole, (ii) accretion plays an important role and (iii) although the mass of the scalar cloud developed through superradiance can be a sizeable fraction of the black-hole mass, its energy-density is very low and backreaction is negligible. Thus, massive black holes are well described by the Kerr geometry even if they develop bosonic clouds through superradiance. Using Monte Carlo methods and very conservative assumptions, we provide strong support to the validity of the linearized analysis and to the bounds of previous studies.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2014

The nonlinear dynamical stability of infrared modifications of gravity

Scalar forces "screened" by the Vainshtein mechanism may hold the key to understanding the cosmological expansion of our universe, while predicting new and exciting features in the interaction between massive bodies. Here we explore the dynamics of the Vainshtein screening mechanism, focusing on the decoupling limit of the DGP braneworld scenario and dRGT massive gravity. We show that there is a vast set of initial conditions whose evolution is well defined and which are driven to the static, screening solutions of these theories. Screening solutions are stable and behave coherently under small fluctuations: they oscillate and eventually settle to an equilibrium configuration, the timescale for the oscillations and damping being dictated by the Vainshtein radius of the screening solutions. At very late times, a power-law decay ensues, in agreement with known analytical results. However, we also conjecture that physically interesting processes such as gravitational collapse of compact stars may not possess a well-posed initial value problem. Finally, we construct solutions with nontrivial multipolar structure describing the screening field of deformed, asymmetric bodies and show that higher multipoles are screened more efficiently than the monopole component.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Superradiant instability of black holes immersed in a magnetic field

Magnetic fields surrounding spinning black holes can confine radiation and trigger superradiant instabilities. To investigate this effect, we perform the first fully-consistent linear analysis of the Ernst spacetime, an exact solution of the Einstein--Maxwell equations describing a black hole immersed in a uniform magnetic field $B$. In the limit in which the black-hole mass vanishes, the background reduces to the marginally stable Melvin spacetime. The presence of an event horizon introduces a small dissipative term, resulting in a set of long-lived -- or unstable -- modes. We provide a simple interpretation of the mode spectrum in terms of a small perfect absorber immersed in a confining box of size $\sim1/B$ and show that rotation triggers a superradiant instability. By studying scalar perturbations of a magnetized Kerr--Newman black hole, we are able to confirm and quantify the details of this instability. The instability time scale can be orders of magnitude shorter than that associated to massive bosonic fields. The instability extracts angular momentum from the event horizon, competing against accretion. This implies that strong magnetic fields set an upper bound on the black-hole spin. Conversely, observations of highly-spinning massive black holes impose an intrinsic limit to the strength of the surrounding magnetic field. We discuss the astrophysical implications of our results and the limitations of the Ernst spacetime to describe realistic astrophysical configurations.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

Black holes with massive graviton hair

No-hair theorems exclude the existence of nontrivial scalar and massive vector hair outside four-dimensional, static, asymptotically flat black-hole spacetimes. We show, by explicitly building nonlinear solutions, that black holes can support massive graviton hair in theories of massive gravity. These hairy solutions are, most likely, the generic end state of the recently discovered monopole instability of Schwarzschild black holes in massive graviton theories.

gr-qc↗