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S. Shankaranarayanan

Publications and source records attributed to S. Shankaranarayanan.

143 records · Page 8Linked to original sources

Entanglement as a source of black hole entropy

We review aspects of black hole thermodynamics, and show how entanglement of a quantum field between the inside and outside of a horizon can account for the area-proportionality of black hole entropy, provided the field is in its ground state. We show that the result continues to hold for Coherent States and Squeezed States, while for Excited States, the entropy scales as a power of area less than unity. We also identify location of the degrees of freedom which give rise to the above entropy.

gr-qc↗

Path integral duality and Planck scale corrections to the primordial spectrum in exponential inflation

The enormous red-shifting of the modes during the inflationary epoch suggests that physics at the Planck scale may modify the standard, nearly, scale-invariant, primordial, density perturbation spectrum. Under the principle of path-integral duality, the space-time behaves as though it has a minimal length $L_{_{\rm P}}$ (which we shall assume to be of the order of the Planck length), a feature that is expected to arise when the quantum gravitational effects on the matter fields have been taken into account. Using the method of path integral duality, in this work, we evaluate the Planck scale corrections to the spectrum of density perturbations in the case of exponential inflation. We find that the amplitude of the corrections is of the order of $({\cal H}/M_{_{\rm P}})$, where ${\cal H}$ and $M_{_{\rm P}}$ denote the inflationary and the Planck energy scales, respectively. We also find that the corrections turn out to be completely independent of scale. We briefly discuss the implications of our result, and also comment on how it compares with an earlier result.

hep-th↗

How robust is the entanglement entropy-area relation?

We revisit the problem of finding the entanglement entropy of a scalar field on a lattice by tracing over its degrees of freedom inside a sphere. It is known that this entropy satisfies the area law -- entropy proportional to the area of the sphere -- when the field is assumed to be in its ground state. We show that the area law continues to hold when the scalar field degrees of freedom are in generic coherent states and a class of squeezed states. However, when excited states are considered, the entropy scales as a lower power of the area. This suggests that for large horizons, the ground state entropy dominates, whereas entropy due to excited states gives power law corrections. We discuss possible implications of this result to black hole entropy.

gr-qc↗

Is entanglement entropy proportional to area?

It is known that the entanglement entropy of a scalar field, found by tracing over its degrees of freedom inside a sphere of radius ${\cal R}$, is proportional to the area of the sphere (and not its volume). This suggests that the origin of black hole entropy, also proportional to its horizon area, may lie in the entanglement between the degrees of freedom inside and outside the horizon. We examine this proposal carefully by including excited states, to check probable deviations from the area law.

hep-th↗

High frequency quasi-normal modes for black holes with generic singularities II: Asymptotically non-flat spacetimes

The possibility that the asymptotic quasi-normal mode (QNM) frequencies can be used to obtain the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy for the Schwarzschild black hole -- commonly referred to as Hod's conjecture -- has received considerable attention. To test this conjecture, using monodromy technique, attempts have been made to analytically compute the asymptotic frequencies for a large class of black hole spacetimes. In an earlier work, two of the current authors computed the high frequency QNMs for scalar perturbations of $(D+2)$ dimensional spherically symmetric, asymptotically flat, single horizon spacetimes with generic power-law singularities. In this work, we extend these results to asymptotically non-flat spacetimes. Unlike the earlier analyses, we treat asymptotically flat and de Sitter spacetimes in a unified manner, while the asymptotic anti-de Sitter spacetimes is considered separately. We obtain master equations for the asymptotic QNM frequency for all the three cases. We show that for all the three cases, the real part of the asymptotic QNM frequency -- in general -- is not proportional to ln(3) thus indicating that the Hod's conjecture may be restrictive.

hep-th↗

Gauge-invariant perturbation theory for trans-Planckian inflation

The possibility that the scale-invariant inflationary spectrum may be modified due to the hidden assumptions about the Planck scale physics -- dubbed as trans-Planckian inflation -- has received considerable attention. To mimic the possible trans-Planckian effects, among various models, modified dispersion relations have been popular in the literature. In almost all the earlier analyzes, unlike the canonical scalar field driven inflation, the trans-Planckian effects are introduced to the scalar/tensor perturbation equations in an ad hoc manner -- without calculating the stress-tensor of the cosmological perturbations from the covariant Lagrangian. In this work, we perform the gauge-invariant cosmological perturbations for the single-scalar field inflation with the Jacobson-Corley dispersion relation by computing the fluctuations of all the fields including the unit time-like vector field which defines a preferred rest frame. We show that: (i) The non-linear effects introduce corrections only to the perturbed energy density. The corrections to the energy density vanish in the super-Hubble scales. (ii) The scalar perturbations, in general, are not purely adiabatic. (iii) The equation of motion of the Mukhanov-Sasaki variable corresponding to the inflaton field is different than those presumed in the earlier analyzes. (iv) The tensor perturbation equation remains unchanged. We perform the classical analysis for the resultant system of equations and also compute the power-spectrum of the scalar perturbations in a particular limit. We discuss the implications of our results and compare with the earlier results.

hep-th↗

High frequency quasi-normal modes for black-holes with generic singularities

We compute the high frequency quasi-normal modes (QNM) for scalar perturbations of spherically symmetric single horizon black-holes in $(D+2)$-space-time dimensions with generic curvature singularities and having metrics of the form $ds^2 = ηx^p (dy^2-dx^2) + x^q dØ_D^2$ near the singularity $x=0$. The real part of the QN frequencies is shown to be proportional to $\log \le[ 1 + 2\cos \le(\p \le[ qD -2 \ri]/2 \ri) \ri]$ where the constant of proportionality is equal to the Hawking temperature for non-degenerate black-holes and inverse of horizon radius for degenerate black-holes. Apart from agreeing with the QN frequencies that have been computed earlier, our results imply that the horizon area spectrum for the general spherically symmetric black-holes is equispaced. Applying our results, we also find the QNM frequencies for extremal Reissner-Nordström and various stringy black-holes.

hep-th↗

Trans-Planckian corrections to the primordial spectrum in the infra-red and the ultra-violet

Due to the tremendous red-shift that occurs during the inflationary epoch in the early universe, it has been realized that trans-Planckian physics may manifest itself at energies much lower than the Planck energy. The presence of a fundamental scale suggests that local Lorentz invariance may be violated at sufficiently high energies. Motivated by this possibility, recently, different models that violate Lorentz invariance locally have been used to evaluate the trans-Planckian corrections to the inflationary density perturbation spectrum. However, certain astrophysical observations seem to indicate that local Lorentz invariance may be preserved to extremely high energies. In such a situation, to study the trans-Planckian effects, it becomes imperative to consider models that preserve local Lorentz invariance even as they contain a fundamental scale. In this work, we construct one such model and evaluate the resulting spectrum of density perturbations in the power-law inflationary scenario. While our model reproduces the standard spectrum on small scales, it naturally predicts a suppression of power on large scales. In fact, the spectrum we obtain has some features which are similar to the one that has recently been obtained from non-commutative inflation. However, we find that the amount of suppression predicted by our model is far less than that is required to fit the observations. We comment on the fact that, with a suitable choice of initial conditions, our approach can lead to corrections at the infra-red as well as at the ultra-violet ends of the spectrum.

hep-th↗

Planck scale effects and the suppression of power on the large scales in the primordial spectrum

The enormous red-shifting of the modes during the inflationary epoch suggests that physics at the very high energy scales may modify the primordial perturbation spectrum. Therefore, the measurements of the anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) could provide us with clues to understanding physics beyond the Planck scale. In this proceeding, we study the Planck scale effects on the primordial spectrum in the power-law inflation using a model which preserves local Lorentz invariance. While our model reproduces the standard spectrum on small scales, it naturally predicts a suppression of power on the large scales -- a feature that seems to be necessary to explain deficit of power in the lower multipoles of the CMB.

hep-th↗

Non-singular black-holes on the brane

We investigate the possibility of obtaining non-singular black-hole solutions in the brane world model by solving the effective field equations for the induced metric on the brane. The Reissner-Nordstrom solution on the brane was obtained by Dadhich etal by imposing the null energy condition on the 3-brane for a bulk having non zero Weyl curvature. In this work, we relax the condition of vanishing scalar curvature $R$, however, retaining the null condition. We have shown that it is possible to obtain class of static non-singular spherically symmetric brane space-times admitting horizon. We obtain one such class of solution which is a regular version of the Reissner-Nordstrom solution in the standard general relativity.

gr-qc↗

Temperature and entropy of Schwarzschild-de Sitter space-time

In the light of recent interest in quantum gravity in de Sitter space, we investigate semi-classical aspects of 4-dimensional Schwarzschild-de Sitter space-time using the method of complex paths. The standard semi-classical techniques (such as Bogoliubov coefficients and Euclidean field theory) have been useful to study quantum effects in space-times with single horizons; however, none of these approaches seem to work for Schwarzschild-de Sitter or, in general, for space-times with multiple horizons. We extend the method of complex paths to space-times with multiple horizons and obtain the spectrum of particles produced in these space-times. We show that the temperature of radiation in these space-times is proportional to the effective surface gravity -- inverse harmonic sum of surface gravity of each horizon. For the Schwarzschild-de Sitter, we apply the method of complex paths to three different coordinate systems -- spherically symmetric, Painleve and Lemaitre. We show that the equilibrium temperature in Schwarzschild-de Sitter is the harmonic mean of cosmological and event horizon temperatures. We obtain Bogoliubov coefficients for space-times with multiple horizons by analyzing the mode functions of the quantum fields near the horizons. We propose a new definition of entropy for space-times with multiple horizons analogous to the entropic definition for space-times with a single horizon. We define entropy for these space-times to be inversely proportional to the square of the effective surface gravity. We show that this definition of entropy for Schwarzschild-de Sitter satisfies the D-bound conjecture.

gr-qc↗

Is there an imprint of Planck scale physics on inflationary cosmology?

We study the effects of the trans-Planckian dispersion relation on the spectrum of the primordial density perturbations during inflation. In contrast to the earlier analyses, we do not assume any specific form of the dispersion relation and allow the initial state of the field to be arbitrary. We obtain the spectrum of vacuum fluctuations of the quantum field by considering a scalar field satisfying the linear wave equation with higher spatial derivative terms propagating in the de Sitter space-time. We show that the power spectrum does not strongly depend on the dispersion relation and that the form of the dispersion relation does not play a significant role in obtaining the corrections to the scale invariant spectrum. We also show that the signatures of the deviations from the flat scale-invariant spectrum from the CMBR observations due to quantum gravitational effects cannot be differentiated from the standard inflationary scenario with an arbitrary initial state.

gr-qc↗

Hawking radiation in different coordinate settings: Complex paths approach

We apply the technique of complex paths to obtain Hawking radiation in different coordinate representations of the Schwarzschild space-time. The coordinate representations we consider do not possess a singularity at the horizon unlike the standard Schwarzschild coordinate. However, the event horizon manifests itself as a singularity in the expression for the semiclassical action. This singularity is regularized by using the method of complex paths and we find that Hawking radiation is recovered in these coordinates indicating the covariance of Hawking radiation as far as these coordinates are concerned.

gr-qc↗

Method of complex paths and general covariance of Hawking radiation

We apply the technique of complex paths to obtain Hawking radiation in different coordinate representations of the Schwarzschild space-time. The coordinate representations we consider do not possess a singularity at the horizon unlike the standard Schwarzschild coordinate. However, the event horizon manifests itself as a singularity in the expression for the semi-classical action. This singularity is regularized by using the method of complex paths and we find that Hawking radiation is recovered in these coordinates indicating the covariance of Hawking radiation. This also shows that there is no correspondence between the particles detected by the model detector and the particle spectrum obtained by the quantum field theoretic analysis -- a result known in other contexts as well.

gr-qc↗

Vanishing of cosmological constant in nonfactorizable geometry

We generalize the results of Randall and Sundrum to a wider class of four-dimensional space-times including the four-dimensional Schwarzschild background and de Sitter universe. We solve the equation for graviton propagation in a general four dimensional background and find an explicit solution for a zero mass bound state of the graviton. We find that this zero mass bound state is normalizable only if the cosmological constant is strictly zero, thereby providing a dynamical reason for the vanishing of cosmological constant within the context of this model. We also show that the results of Randall and Sundrum can be generalized without any modification to the Schwarzschild background.

hep-th↗

Hypothesis of path integral duality: Applications to QED

We use the modified propagator for quantum field based on a ``principle of path integral duality" proposed earlier in a paper by Padmanabhan to investigate several results in QED. This procedure modifies the Feynman propagator by the introduction of a fundamental length scale. We use this modified propagator for the Dirac particles to evaluate the first order radiative corrections in QED. We find that the extra factor of the modified propagator acts like a regulator at the Planck scales thereby removing the divergences that otherwise appear in the conventional radiative correction calculations of QED. We find that:(i) all the three renormalisation factors $Z_1$, $Z_2$, and $Z_3$ pick up finite corrections and (ii) the modified propagator breaks the gauge invariance at a very small level of ${\mathcal{O}}(10^{-45})$. The implications of this result to generation of the primordial seed magnetic fields are discussed.

gr-qc↗

Probing the BLR in AGNs using time variability of associated absorption line

It is know that most of the clouds producing associated absorption in the spectra of AGNs and quasars do not completely cover the background source (continuum + broad emission line region, BLR). We note that the covering factor derived for the absorption is the fraction of photons occulted by the absorbing clouds, and is not necessarily the same as the fractional area covered. We show that the variability in absorption lines can be produced by the changes in the covering factor caused by the variation in the continuum and the finite light travel time across the BLR. We discuss how such a variability can be distinguished from the variability caused by other effects and how one can use the variability in the covering factor to probe the BLR.

astro-ph↗