Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

V. Bozza

Publications and source records attributed to V. Bozza.

At least 163 records · Page 9Linked to original sources
arXiv2005

Analytic Kerr black hole lensing for equatorial observers in the strong deflection limit

In this paper we present an analytical treatment of gravitational lensing by Kerr black holes in the limit of very large deflection angles, restricting to observers in the equatorial plane. We accomplish our objective starting from the Schwarzschild black hole and adding corrections up to second order in the black hole spin. This is sufficient to provide a full description of all caustics and the inversion of lens mapping for sources near them. On the basis of these formulae we argue that relativistic images of Low Mass X-ray Binaries around Sgr A* are very likely to be seen by future X-ray interferometry missions.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2005

Regular two-component bouncing cosmologies and perturbations therein

We present a full investigation of scalar perturbations in a rather generic model for a regular bouncing universe, where the bounce is triggered by an effective perfect fluid with negative energy density. Long before and after the bounce the universe is dominated by a source with positive energy density, which may be a perfect fluid, a scalar field, or any other source with an intrinsic isocurvature perturbation. Within this framework, we present an analytical method to accurately estimate the spectrum of large-scale scalar perturbations until their reentry, long after the bounce. We also propose a simple way to identify non-singular gauge-invariant variables through the bounce and present the results of extensive numerical tests in several possible realizations of the scenario. In no case do we find that the spectrum of the pre-bounce growing mode of the Bardeen potential can be transferred to a post-bounce constant mode.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2005

Scalar perturbations in regular two-component bouncing cosmologies

We consider a two-component regular cosmology bouncing from contraction to expansion, where, in order to include both scalar fields and perfect fluids as particular cases, the dominant component is allowed to have an intrinsic isocurvature mode. We show that the spectrum of the growing mode of the Bardeen potential in the pre-bounce is never transferred to the dominant mode of the post-bounce. The latter acquires at most a dominant isocurvature component, depending on the relative properties of the two fluids. Our results imply that several claims in the literature need substantial revision.

hep-th↗
arXiv2005

Gravitational Lensing of stars in the central arcsecond of our Galaxy

In the neighborhood of Sgr A*, several stars (S2, S12, S14, S1, S8, S13) enjoy an accurate determination of their orbital parameters. General Relativity predicts that the central black hole acts as a gravitational lens on these stars, generating a secondary image and two infinite series of relativistic images. For each of these six stars, we calculate the light curves for the secondary and the first two relativistic images, in the Schwarzschild black hole hypothesis, throughout their orbital periods. The curves are peaked around the periapse epoch, but two subpeaks may arise in nearly edge-on orbits, when the source is behind or in front of Sgr A*. We show that for most of these stars the secondary image should be observable during its brightness peak. In particular, S14 is the best candidate, since its secondary image reaches K=23.3 with an angular separation of 0.125 mas from the apparent horizon of the central black hole. The detection of such images by future instruments could represent the first observation of gravitational lensing beyond the weak field approximation.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2004

Microlensing by gas filaments

Gas in the interstellar matter is generally organized in filamentary structures, which may be also relevant for a complementary explanation of the dark matter in the Galactic halo. We examine the possibility that such structures may act as gravitational microlenses on background sources. To this purpose, we derive the general properties of a cylindrical lens and compare the light curves produced by such microlensing events with those generated by spherically symmetric clouds. We find that the establishment of the symmetry of the lens through the sole analysis of the light curve may be problematic, while the analysis of the astrometric shift of the centroid of the image can discriminate between the two classes of clouds. On the basis of our analysis, we find that only gas filaments with a very high density could be detectable. Such clouds are unlikely to exist in a long-lived state. Therefore, microlensing cannot discriminate on the existence and the relevance of gas filaments in the Halo, which could well be present and escape detection by ordinary microlensing surveys.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2004

Gravitational Lensing by Black Holes: a comprehensive treatment and the case of the star S2

Light rays passing very close to a black hole may experience very strong deviations. Two geometries were separately considered in the recent literature: a source behind the black hole (standard gravitational lensing); a source in front of the black hole (retro-lensing). In this paper we start from the Strong Field Limit approach to recover both situations under the same formalism, describing not only the two geometries just mentioned but also any intermediate possible configurations of the system source-lens-observer, without any small-angle limitations. This is done for any spherically symmetric black holes and for the equatorial plane of Kerr black holes. In the light of this formalism we revisit the previous literature on retro-lensing, sensibly improving the observational estimates. In particular, for the case of the star S2, we give sharp predictions for the magnitude of the relativistic images and the time of their highest brightness, which should occur at the beginning of year 2018. The observation of such images would open fascinating perspectives on the measure of the physical parameters of the central black hole, including mass, spin and distance.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2003

Time Delay in Black Hole Gravitational Lensing as a Distance Estimator

We calculate the time delay between different relativistic images formed by black hole gravitational lensing in the strong field limit. For spherically symmetric black holes, it turns out that the time delay between the first two images is proportional to the minimum impact angle. Their ratio gives a very interesting and precise measure of the distance of the black hole. Moreover, using also the separation between the images and their luminosity ratio, it is possible to extract the mass of the black hole. The time delay for the black hole at the center of our Galaxy is just few minutes, but for supermassive black holes with M=10^8 - 10^9 solar masses in the neighbourhood of the Local Group the time delay amounts to few days, thus being measurable with a good accuracy.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2003

Cosmological Perturbations from a New-Physics Hypersurface

Within a broad class of inflationary models we critically analyze the way initial quantum fluctuations on a new-physics hypersurface (NPH) affect standard predictions for large-scale cosmological perturbations. We find that these so-called transplanckian effects depend crucially on the definition of the "vacuum state" in particular on which Hamiltonian is minimized on the NPH in order to select such a state. Transplanckian effects can be made much smaller than previously suggested if sufficiently "adiabatic" Hamiltonians are minimized.

hep-th↗
arXiv2003

Quasi-Equatorial Gravitational Lensing by Spinning Black Holes in the Strong Field Limit

Spherically symmetric black holes produce, by strong field lensing, two infinite series of relativistic images, formed by light rays winding around the black hole at distances comparable to the gravitational radius. In this paper, we address the relevance of the black hole spin for the strong field lensing phenomenology, focusing on trajectories close to the equatorial plane for simplicity. In this approximation, we derive a two-dimensional lens equation and formulae for the position and the magnification of the relativistic images in the strong field limit. The most outstanding effect is the generation of a non trivial caustic structure. Caustics drift away from the optical axis and acquire finite extension. For a high enough black hole spin, depending on the source extension, we can practically observe only one image rather than two infinite series of relativistic images. In this regime, additional non equatorial images may play an important role in the phenomenology.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2002

Constraints on pre-big bang parameter space from CMBR anisotropies

The so-called curvaton mechanism --a way to convert isocurvature perturbations into adiabatic ones-- is investigated both analytically and numerically in a pre-big bang scenario where the role of the curvaton is played by a sufficiently massive Kalb--Ramond axion of superstring theory. When combined with observations of CMBR anisotropies at large and moderate angular scales, the present analysis allows us to constrain quite considerably the parameter space of the model: in particular, the initial displacement of the axion from the minimum of its potential and the rate of evolution of the compactification volume during pre-big bang inflation. The combination of theoretical and experimental constraints favours a slightly blue spectrum of scalar perturbations, and/or a value of the string scale in the vicinity of the SUSY-GUT scale.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2002

Gravitational lensing in the strong field limit

We provide an analytic method to discriminate among different types of black holes on the ground of their strong field gravitational lensing properties. We expand the deflection angle of the photon in the neighbourhood of complete capture, defining a strong field limit, in opposition to the standard weak field limit. This expansion is worked out for a completely generic spherically symmetric spacetime, without any reference to the field equations and just assuming that the light ray follows the geodesics equation. We prove that the deflection angle always diverges logarithmically when the minimum impact parameter is reached. We apply this general formalism to Schwarzschild, Reissner-Nordstrom and Janis-Newman-Winicour black holes. We then compare the coefficients characterizing these metrics and find that different collapsed objects are characterized by different strong field limits. The strong field limit coefficients are directly connected to the observables, such as the position and the magnification of the relativistic images. As a concrete example, we consider the black hole at the centre of our galaxy and estimate the optical resolution needed to investigate its strong field behaviour through its relativistic images.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2002

Microlensing of strongly interacting binary systems

Many binary systems are in a state of strong interaction, where mass exchanges, accretion disks, common envelopes provide circumstellar matter which can have significant effects in microlensing light curves of background sources. Such chromatic absorption effects provide very interesting information on the nature of this diffuse matter and the physics of the interaction between the two stars.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2002

Assisting pre-big bang phenomenology through short-lived axions

We present the results of a detailed study of how isocurvature axion fluctuations are converted into adiabatic metric perturbations through axion decay, and discuss the constraints on the parameters of pre-big bang cosmology needed for consistency with present CMB-anisotropy data. The large-scale normalization of temperature fluctuations has a non-trivial dependence both on the mass and on the initial value of the axion. In the simplest, minimal models of pre-big bang inflation, consistency with the COBE normalization requires a slightly tilted (blue) spectrum, while a strictly scale-invariant spectrum requires mild modifications of the minimal backgrounds at large curvature and/or string coupling.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2001

Scalar fluctuations in dilatonic brane-worlds

We derive and solve the full set of scalar perturbation equations for a class of five-dimensional brane--world solutions, with a dilaton scalar field coupled to the bulk cosmological constant and to a 3-brane. The spectrum contains one localized massless scalar mode, to be interpreted as an effective dilaton on the brane, inducing long--range scalar interactions. Two massive scalar modes yield corrections to Newton's law at short distances, which persist even in the limit of vanishing dilaton (namely, in the standard Randall--Sundrum configuration).

hep-th↗
arXiv2001

Microlensing by Compact Objects associated to Gas Clouds

We investigate gravitational microlensing of point-like lenses surrounded by diffuse gas clouds. Besides gravitational bending, one must also consider refraction and absorption phenomena. According to the cloud density, the light curves may suffer small to large deviations from Paczynski curves, up to complete eclipses. Moreover, the presence of the cloud endows this type of microlensing events with a high chromaticity and absorption lines recognizable by spectral analysis. It is possible that these objects populate the halo of our galaxy, giving a conspicuous contribution to the fraction of the baryonic dark matter. The required features for the extension and the mass of the cloud to provide appreciable signatures are also met by several astrophysical objects.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2001

Microlensing search towards M31

We present the first results of the analysis of data collected during the 1998-99 observational campaign at the 1.3 meter McGraw-Hill Telescope, towards the Andromeda galaxy (M31), aimed to the detection of gravitational microlensing effects as a probe of the presence of dark matter in our and in M31 halo. The analysis is performed using the pixel lensing technique, which consists in the study of flux variations of unresolved sources and has been proposed and implemented by the AGAPE collaboration. We carry out a shape analysis by demanding that the detected flux variations be achromatic and compatible with a Paczynski light curve. We apply the Durbin-Watson hypothesis test to the residuals. Furthermore, we consider the background of variables sources. Finally five candidate microlensing events emerge from our selection. Comparing with the predictions of a Monte Carlo simulation, assuming a standard spherical model for the M31 and Galactic haloes, and typical values for the MACHO mass, we find that our events are only marginally consistent with the distribution of observable parameters predicted by the simulation.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2001

Neutrino Oscillations in Caianiello's Quantum Geometry Model

Neutrino flavor oscillations are analyzed in the framework of Quantum Geometry model proposed by Caianiello. In particular, we analyze the consequences of the model for accelerated neutrino particles which experience an effective Schwarzschild geometry modified by the existence of an upper limit on the acceleration, which implies a violation of the equivalence principle. We find a shift of quantum mechanical phase of neutrino oscillations, which depends on the energy of neutrinos as E^3. Implications on atmospheric and solar neutrinos are discussed.

hep-ph↗