arXiv subjects

Vitor Cardoso

Publications and source records attributed to Vitor Cardoso.

At least 235 records · Page 13Linked to original sources

arXiv2014

Black holes and fundamental fields: hair, kicks and a gravitational "Magnus" effect

Scalar fields pervade theoretical physics and are a fundamental ingredient to solve the dark matter problem, to realize the Peccei-Quinn mechanism in QCD or the string-axiverse scenario. They are also a useful proxy for more complex matter interactions, such as accretion disks or matter in extreme conditions. Here, we study the collision between scalar "clouds" and rotating black holes. For the first time we are able to compare analytic estimates and strong field, nonlinear numerical calculations for this problem. As the black hole pierces through the cloud it accretes according to the Bondi-Hoyle prediction, but is deflected through a purely kinematic gravitational "anti-Magnus" effect, which we predict to be present also during the interaction of black holes with accretion disks. After the interaction is over, we find large recoil velocities in the transverse direction. The end-state of the process belongs to the vacuum Kerr family if the scalar is massless, but can be a hairy black hole when the fundamental scalar is massive.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2014

Ergoregion instability: The hydrodynamic vortex

Four-dimensional, asymptotically flat spacetimes with an ergoregion but no horizon have been shown to be linearly unstable against a superradiant-triggered mechanism. This result has wide implications in the search for astrophysically viable alternatives to black holes, but also in the understanding of black holes and Hawking evaporation. Here we investigate this instability in detail for a particular setup which can be realized in the laboratory: the {\it hydrodynamic vortex}, an effective geometry for sound waves, with ergoregion and without an event horizon.

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arXiv2014

Black holes and fundamental fields in Numerical Relativity: initial data construction and evolution of bound states

Fundamental fields are a natural outcome in cosmology and particle physics and might therefore serve as a proxy for more complex interactions. The equivalence principle implies that all forms of matter gravitate, and one therefore expects relevant, universal imprints of new physics in strong field gravity, such as that encountered close to black holes. Fundamental fields in the vicinities of supermassive black holes give rise to extremely long-lived, or even unstable, configurations which slowly extract angular momentum from the black hole or simply evolve non-linearly over long timescales, with important implications for particle physics and gravitational-wave physics. Here, we perform a fully non-linear study of scalar-field condensates around rotating black holes. We provide novel ways to specify initial data for the Einstein-Klein-Gordon system, with potential applications in a variety of scenarios. Our numerical results confirm the existence of long-lived bar-modes which act as lighthouses for gravitational wave emission: the scalar field condenses outside the black hole geometry and acts as a constant frequency gravitational-wave source for very long timescales. This effect could turn out to be a potential signature of beyond standard model physics and also a promising source of gravitational waves for future gravitational wave detectors.

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arXiv2014

On generic parametrizations of spinning black-hole geometries

The construction of a generic parametrization of spinning geometries which can be matched continuously to the Kerr metric is an important open problem in General Relativity. Its resolution is more than of academic interest, as it allows to parametrize and quantify possible deviations from the no-hair theorem. Various approaches to the problem have been proposed, all with their own (severe) limitations. Here we discuss the metric recently proposed by Johannsen and Psaltis, showing that (i) the original metric describes only corrections that preserve the horizon area-mass relation of nonspinning geometries; (ii) this unnecessary restriction can be relaxed by introducing a new parameter that in fact dominates in both the post-Newtonian and strong-field regimes; (iii) within this framework, we construct the most generic spinning black-hole geometry which contains twice as many the (infinite) parameters of the original metric; (iv) in the strong-field regime, all parameters are roughly equally important. This fact introduces a severe degeneracy problem in the case of highly-spinning black holes. Finally, we prove that even our generalization fails to describe the few known spinning black-hole metrics in modified gravity.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2014

Collisions of oppositely charged black holes

The first fully non-linear numerical simulations of colliding charged black holes in D=4 Einstein-Maxwell theory were recently reported arXiv:1205.1063. These collisions were performed for black holes with equal charge-to-mass ratio, for which initial data can be found in closed analytic form. Here we generalize the study of collisions of charged black holes to the case of unequal charge-to-mass ratios. We focus on oppositely charged black holes, as to maximize acceleration-dependent effects. As |Q|/M increases from 0 to 0.99, we observe that the gravitational radiation emitted increases by a factor of ~ 2.7; the electromagnetic radiation emission becomes dominant for |Q|/M >~ 0.37 and at |Q|/M=0.99 is larger, by a factor of ~ 5.8, than its gravitational counterpart. We observe that these numerical results exhibit a precise and simple scaling with the charge. Furthermore, we show that the results from the numerical simulations are qualitatively captured by a simple analytic model that computes the electromagnetic dipolar radiation and the gravitational quadrupolar radiation of two non-relativistic interacting particles in Minkowski spacetime.

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arXiv2014

Collapse of self-interacting fields in asymptotically flat spacetimes: do self-interactions render Minkowski spacetime unstable?

The nonlinear instability of anti-de Sitter spacetime has recently been established with the striking result that generic initial data collapses to form black holes. This outcome suggests that confined matter generically collapses, and that collapse can only be halted -- at most -- by nonlinear bound states. Here we provide evidence that such mechanism can operate even in asymptotically flat spacetimes, by studying the evolution of the Einstein-Klein-Gordon system for a self-interacting scalar field. We show that (i) configurations which do not collapse promptly can do so after successive reflections off the potential barrier, but (ii) that at intermediate amplitudes and Compton wavelengths, collapse to black holes is replaced by the appearance of oscillating soliton stars. Finally, (iii) for very small initial amplitudes, the field disperses away in a manner consistent with power-law tails of massive fields. Minkowski is stable against gravitational collapse. Our results provide one further piece to the rich phenomenology of gravitational collapse and show the important interplay between bound states, blueshift, dissipation and confinement effects.

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arXiv2014

Matter around Kerr black holes in scalar-tensor theories: scalarization and superradiant instability

In electrovacuum stationary, asymptotically flat black holes in scalar-tensor theories of gravity are described by the Kerr-Newman family of solutions, just as in general relativity. We show that there exist two mechanisms which can render Kerr black holes unstable when matter is present in the vicinity of the black hole, as this induces an effective mass for the scalar. The first mechanism is a tachyonic instability that appears when the effective mass squared is negative, triggering the development of scalar hair --- a black hole version of "spontaneous scalarization". The second instability is associated with superradiance and is present when the effective mass squared is positive and when the black hole spin exceeds a certain threshold. The second mechanism is also responsible for a resonant effect in the superradiant scattering of scalar waves, with amplification factors as large as 10^5 or more.

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arXiv2014

Analytic approximations, perturbation theory, effective field theory methods and their applications

We summarize the parallel session B4: 'Analytic approximations, perturbation theory effective field theory methods and their applications' and the joint session B2/B4: 'Approximate solutions to Einstein equations: Methods and Applications', of the GR20 & Amaldi10 conference in Warsaw, July 2013. The contributed talks reported significant advances on various areas of research in gravity.

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arXiv2013

Holographic thermalization, quasinormal modes and superradiance in Kerr-AdS

Black holes in anti-de Sitter (AdS) backgrounds play a pivotal role in the gauge/gravity duality where they determine, among other things, the approach to equilibrium of the dual field theory. We undertake a detailed analysis of perturbed Kerr-AdS black holes in four- and five-dimensional spacetimes, including the computation of its quasinormal modes, hydrodynamic modes and superradiantly unstable modes. Our results shed light on the possibility of new black hole phases with a single Killing field, possible new holographic phenomena and phases in the presence of a rotating chemical potential, and close a crucial gap in our understanding of linearized perturbations of black holes in anti-de Sitter scenarios.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

Holographic collisions in confining theories

We study the gravitational dual of a high-energy collision in a confining gauge theory. We consider a linearized approach in which two point particles traveling in an AdS-soliton background suddenly collide to form an object at rest (presumably a black hole for large enough center-of-mass energies). The resulting radiation exhibits the features expected in a theory with a mass gap: late-time power law tails of the form t^(-3/2), the failure of Huygens' principle and distortion of the wave pattern as it propagates. The energy spectrum is exponentially suppressed for frequencies smaller than the gauge theory mass gap. Consequently, we observe no memory effect in the gravitational waveforms. At larger frequencies the spectrum has an upward-stairway structure, which corresponds to the excitation of the tower of massive states in the confining gauge theory. We discuss the importance of phenomenological cutoffs to regularize the divergent spectrum, and the aspects of the full non-linear collision that are expected to be captured by our approach.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

Black holes with surrounding matter in scalar-tensor theories

We uncover two mechanisms that can render Kerr black holes unstable in scalar-tensor gravity, both associated to the presence of matter in the vicinity of the black hole and the fact that this introduces an effective mass for the scalar. Our results highlight the importance of understanding the structure of spacetime in realistic, astrophysical black holes in scalar-tensor theories.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

Astrophysical signatures of boson stars: quasinormal modes and inspiral resonances

Compact bosonic field configurations, or boson stars, are promising dark matter candidates which have been invoked as an alternative description for the supermassive compact objects in active galactic nuclei. Boson stars can be comparable in size and mass to supermassive black holes and they are hard to distinguish by electromagnetic observations. However, boson stars do not possess an event horizon and their global spacetime structure is different from that of a black hole. This leaves a characteristic imprint in the gravitational-wave emission, which can be used as a discriminant between black holes and other horizonless compact objects. Here we perform a detailed study of boson stars and their gravitational-wave signatures in a fully relativistic setting, a study which was lacking in the existing literature in many respects. We construct several fully relativistic boson star configurations, and we analyze their geodesic structure and free oscillation spectra, or quasinormal modes. We explore the gravitational and scalar response of boson star spacetimes to an inspiralling stellar-mass object and compare it to its black hole counterpart. We find that a generic signature of compact boson stars is the resonant-mode excitation by a small compact object on stable quasi-circular geodesic motion.

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↗

arXiv2013

Black hole bombs and explosions: from astrophysics to particle physics

Black holes are the elementary particles of gravity, the final state of sufficiently massive stars and of energetic collisions. With a forty-year long history, black hole physics is a fully-blossomed field which promises to embrace several branches of theoretical physics. Here I review the main developments in highly dynamical black holes with an emphasis on high energy black hole collisions and probes of particle physics via superradiance. This write-up, rather than being a collection of well known results, is intended to highlight open issues and the most intriguing results.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

Partially massless gravitons do not destroy general relativity black holes

Recent nonlinear completions of Fierz-Pauli theory for a massive spin-2 field include nonlinear massive gravity and bimetric theories. The spectrum of black-hole solutions in these theories is rich, and comprises the same vacuum solutions of Einstein's gravity enlarged to include a cosmological constant. It was recently shown that Schwarzschild (de Sitter) black holes in these theories are generically unstable against spherical perturbations. Here we show that a notable exception is partially massless gravity, where the mass of the graviton is fixed in terms of the cosmological constant by μ^2=2Λ/3 and a new gauge invariance emerges. We find that general-relativity black holes are stable in this limit. Remarkably, the spectrum of massive gravitational perturbations is isospectral.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

Universality, maximum radiation and absorption in high-energy collisions of black holes with spin

We explore the impact of black hole spins on the dynamics of high-energy black hole collisions. We report results from numerical simulations with gamma-factors up to 2.49 and dimensionless spin parameter +0.85, +0.6, 0, -0.6, -0.85. We find that the scattering threshold becomes independent of spin at large center-of-mass energies, confirming previous conjectures that structure does not matter in ultrarelativistic collisions. It has further been argued that in this limit all of the kinetic energy of the system may be radiated by fine tuning the impact parameter to threshold. On the contrary, we find that only about 60% of the kinetic energy is radiated for gamma=2.49. By monitoring apparent horizons before and after scattering events we show that the "missing energy" is absorbed by the individual black holes in the encounter, and moreover the individual black-hole spins change significantly. We support this conclusion with perturbative calculations. An extrapolation of our results to the limit gamma->infinity suggests that about half of the center-of-mass energy of the system can be emitted in gravitational radiation, while the rest must be converted into rest-mass and spin energy.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

Equation-of-state-independent relations in neutron stars

Neutron stars are extremely relativistic objects which abound in our universe and yet are poorly understood, due to the high uncertainty on how matter behaves in the extreme conditions which prevail in the stellar core. It has recently been pointed out that the moment of inertia I, the Love number lambda and the spin-induced quadrupole moment Q of an isolated neutron star, are related through functions which are practically independent of the equation of state. These surprising universal I-lambda-Q relations pave the way for a better understanding of neutron stars, most notably via gravitational-wave emission. Gravitational-wave observations will probe highly-dynamical binaries and it is important to understand whether the universality of the I-lambda-Q relations survives strong-field and finite-size effects. We apply a Post-Newtonian-Affine approach to model tidal deformations in compact binaries and show that the I-lambda relation depends on the inspiral frequency, but is insensitive to the equation of state. We provide a fit for the universal relation, which is valid up to a gravitational wave frequency of ~900 Hz and accurate to within a few percent. Our results strengthen the universality of I-lambda-Q relations, and are relevant for gravitational-wave observations with advanced ground-based interferometers. We also discuss the possibility of using the Love-compactness relation to measure the neutron-star radius with an uncertainty of about 10% or smaller from gravitational-wave observations.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

Massive spin-2 fields on black hole spacetimes: Instability of the Schwarzschild and Kerr solutions and bounds on the graviton mass

Massive bosonic fields of arbitrary spin are predicted by general extensions of the Standard Model. It has been recently shown that there exists a family of bimetric theories of gravity - including massive gravity - which are free of Boulware-Deser ghosts at the nonlinear level. This opens up the possibility to describe consistently the dynamics of massive spin-2 particles in a gravitational field. Within this context, we develop the study of massive spin-2 fluctuations - including massive gravitons - around Schwarzschild and slowly-rotating Kerr black holes. Our work has two important outcomes. First, we show that the Schwarzschild geometry is linearly unstable for small tensor masses, against a spherically symmetric mode. Second, we provide solid evidence that the Kerr geometry is also generically unstable, both against the spherical mode and against long-lived superradiant modes. In the absence of nonlinear effects, the observation of spinning black holes bounds the graviton mass to be smaller than 5x10^{-23} eV.

gr-qc↗