The recent detection of gravitational wave GW170817 has placed a severe bound on the deviation of the speed of gravitational waves from the speed of light. We explore the consequences of this detection for Hořava gravity.

We present ENIGMA, a time domain, inspiral-merger-ringdown waveform model that describes nonspinning binary black holes systems that evolve on moderately eccentric orbits. The inspiral evolution is described using a consistent combination of post-Newtonian theory, self-force and black hole perturbation theory. Assuming eccentric binaries that circularize prior to coalescence, we smoothly match the eccentric inspiral with a stand-alone, quasicircular merger, which is constructed using machine learning algorithms that are trained with quasicircular numerical relativity waveforms. We show that ENIGMA reproduces with excellent accuracy the dynamics of quasicircular compact binaries. We validate ENIGMA using a set of Einstein Toolkit eccentric numerical relativity waveforms, which describe eccentric binary black hole mergers with mass-ratios between $1\le q\le 5.5$, and eccentricities $e_0\lesssim 0.2$ ten orbits before merger. We use this model to explore in detail the physics that can be extracted with moderately eccentric, nonspinning binary black hole mergers. In particular, we use ENIGMA to show that the gravitational wave transients GW150914, GW151226, GW170104, GW170814 and GW170608 can be effectively recovered with spinning, quasicircular templates if the eccentricity of these events at a gravitational wave frequency of 10 Hz satisfies $e_0\le \{0.175,0.125,0.175,0.175,0.125\}$, respectively. We show that if these systems have eccentricities $e_0\sim 0.1$ at a gravitational wave frequency of 10 Hz, they can be misclassified as quasicircular binaries due to parameter space degeneracies between eccentricity and spin corrections. Using our catalog of eccentric numerical relativity simulations, we discuss the importance of including higher-order waveform multipoles in gravitational wave searches of eccentric binary black hole mergers.

We compute the mass-to-radius profiles for dark matter admixed strange quark stars in the Starobinsky model of modified gravity. For quark matter, we assume the MIT bag model, while self-interacting dark matter inside the star is modeled as a Bose-Einstein condensate with a polytropic equation of state. We numerically integrate the structure equations in the Einstein frame, adopting the two-fluid formalism, and we treat the curvature correction term nonperturbatively. The effects on the properties of the stars of the amount of dark matter as well as the higher curvature term are investigated. We find that strange quark stars (in agreement with current observational constraints) with the highest masses are equally affected by dark matter and modified gravity.

Since the Schwarzschild–de Sitter spacetime is static inside the cosmological event horizon, if the dark energy state parameter is sufficiently close to $-1$, apparently one could still expect an effectively static geometry, in the attraction dominated region inside the maximum turnaround radius, $R_{\mathrm{TA},\max }$, of a cosmic structure. We take the first order metric derived recently assuming a static and ideal dark energy fluid with equation of state $P(r)=\alpha \rho (r)$ as a source in Bhattacharya and Tomaras [Eur. Phys. J. C 77, 526 (2017)], which reproduced the expression for $R_{\mathrm{TA},\max }$ found earlier in the cosmological McVittie spacetime. Here we show that the equality originates from the equivalence of geodesic motion in these two backgrounds, in the nonrelativistic regime. We extend this metric up to the third order and compute the bending of light using the Rindler-Ishak method. For $\alpha \ne -1$, a dark energy dependent term appears in the bending equation, unlike the case of the cosmological constant, $\alpha =-1$. Because of this new term in particular, existing data for the light bending at galactic scales yields $(1+\alpha )\lesssim \mathcal{O}({10}^{-14})$, thereby practically ruling out any such static and inhomogeneous dark energy fluid we started with. Implication of this result pertaining to the uniqueness of the Schwarzschild–de Sitter spacetime in such an inhomogeneous dark energy background is discussed.

In general relativity, perturbation theory about a background solution fails if the background spacetime has a Killing symmetry and a compact spacelike Cauchy surface. This failure, dubbed as linearization instability, shows itself as non-integrability of the perturbative infinitesimal deformation to a finite deformation of the background. Namely, the linearized field equations have spurious solutions which cannot be obtained from the linearization of exact solutions. In practice, one can show the failure of the linear perturbation theory by showing that a certain quadratic (integral) constraint on the linearized solutions is not satisfied. For non-compact Cauchy surfaces, the situation is different and for example, Minkowski space having a non-compact Cauchy surface, is linearization stable. Here we study, the linearization instability in generic metric theories of gravity where Einstein’s theory is modified with additional curvature terms. We show that, unlike the case of general relativity, for modified theories even in the non-compact Cauchy surface cases, there are some theories which show linearization instability about their anti-de Sitter backgrounds. Recent $D$ dimensional critical and three dimensional chiral gravity theories are two such examples. This observation sheds light on the paradoxical behavior of vanishing conserved charges (mass, angular momenta) for non-vacuum solutions, such as black holes, in these theories.

We study for the first time the stability against scalar perturbations, and we compute the spectrum of quasinormal modes of three-dimensional charged black holes in Einstein-power-Maxwell nonlinear electrodynamics assuming running couplings. Adopting the sixth order Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) approximation we investigate how the running of the couplings change the spectrum of the classical theory. Our results show that all modes corresponding to nonvanishing angular momentum are unstable both in the classical theory and with the running of the couplings, while the fundamental mode can be stable or unstable depending on the running parameter and the electric charge.

We propose a realization of cosmic inflation with the Higgs field when the Higgs potential has degenerate vacua by employing the recently proposed idea of hill-climbing inflation. The resultant inflationary predictions exhibit a sizable deviation from those of the ordinary Higgs inflation.

There is a growing interest in astrophysical tests of the stability of dimensionless fundamental couplings, such as the fine-structure constant $\alpha$, as an optimal probe of new physics. The imminent arrival of the ESPRESSO spectrograph will soon enable significant gains in the precision and accuracy of these tests and widen the range of theoretical models that can be tightly constrained. Here we illustrate this by studying proposed extensions of the Bekenstein-type models for the evolution of $\alpha$ that allow different couplings of the scalar field to both dark matter and dark energy. We use a combination of current astrophysical and local laboratory data (from tests with atomic clocks) to show that these couplings are constrained to parts per million level, with the constraints being dominated by the atomic clocks. We also quantify the expected improvements from ESPRESSO and other future spectrographs, and briefly discuss possible observational strategies, showing that these facilities can improve current constraints by more than an order of magnitude.

We discuss the role of dynamical tidal effects for inspiraling neutron star binaries, focusing on features that may be considered “unmodeled” in gravitational-wave searches. In order to cover the range of possibilities, we consider (i) individual oscillation modes becoming resonant with the tide, (ii) the elliptical instability, where a pair of inertial modes exhibit a nonlinear resonance with the tide, and (iii) the nonresonant p-g instability which may arise as high-order pressure (p) and gravity (g) modes in the star couple nonlinearly to the tide. In each case, we estimate the amount of additional energy loss that needs to be associated with the dynamical tide in order for the effect to impact on an observed gravitational-wave signal. We explore to what extent the involved neutron star physics may be considered known and how one may be able to use observational data to constrain theory.

Silicon is a potential substrate material for the large-areal-size mirrors of the next-generation laser interferometer gravitational wave detector operated in cryogenics. Silicon nitride thin films uniformly deposited by a chemical vapor deposition method on large-size silicon wafers is a common practice in the silicon integrated circuit industry. We used plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition to deposit silicon nitride films on silicon and studied the physical properties of the films that are pertinent to application of mirror coatings for laser interferometer gravitational wave detectors. We measured and analyzed the structure, optical properties, stress, Young’s modulus, and mechanical loss of the films, at both room and cryogenic temperatures. Optical extinction coefficients of the films were in the ${10}^{-5}$ range at 1550-nm wavelength. Room-temperature mechanical loss of the films varied in the range from low ${10}^{-4}$ to low ${10}^{-5}$ within the frequency range of interest. The existence of a cryogenic mechanical loss peak depended on the composition of the films. We measured the bond concentrations of $\mathrm{N}─\mathrm{H}$, $\mathrm{Si}─\mathrm{H}$, $\mathrm{Si}─\mathrm{N}$, and $\mathrm{Si}─\mathrm{Si}$ bonds in the films and analyzed the correlations between bond concentrations and cryogenic mechanical losses. We proposed three possible two-level systems associated with the $\mathrm{N}─\mathrm{H}$, $\mathrm{Si}─\mathrm{H}$, and $\mathrm{Si}─\mathrm{N}$ bonds in the film. We inferred that the dominant source of the cryogenic mechanical loss for the silicon nitride films is the two-level system of exchanging position between a ${\mathrm{H}}^{+}$ and electron lone pair associated with the $\mathrm{N}─\mathrm{H}$ bond. Under our deposition conditions, superior properties in terms of high refractive index with a large adjustable range, low optical absorption, and low mechanical loss were achieved for films with lower nitrogen content and lower $\mathrm{N}─\mathrm{H}$ bond concentration. Possible pairing of the silicon nitride films with other materials in the quarter-wave stack is discussed.

$N$-jettiness subtractions provide a general approach for performing fully-differential next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) calculations. Since they are based on the physical resolution variable $N$-jettiness, ${\mathcal{T}}_N$, subleading power corrections in $\tau ={\mathcal{T}}_N/Q$, with $Q$ a hard interaction scale, can also be systematically computed. We study the structure of power corrections for 0-jettiness, ${\mathcal{T}}_0$, for the $gg\to H$ process. Using the soft-collinear effective theory we analytically compute the leading power corrections ${\alpha }_s\tau \ln \tau$ and ${\alpha }_s^2\tau {\ln }^3\tau$ (finding partial agreement with a previous result in the literature), and perform a detailed numerical study of the power corrections in the $gg$, $gq$, and $q\overline{q}$ channels. This includes a numerical extraction of the ${\alpha }_s\tau$ and ${\alpha }_s^2\tau {\ln }^2\tau$ corrections, and a study of the dependence on the ${\mathcal{T}}_0$ definition. Including such power suppressed logarithms significantly reduces the size of missing power corrections, and hence improves the numerical efficiency of the subtraction method. Having a more detailed understanding of the power corrections for both $q\overline{q}$ and $gg$ initiated processes also provides insight into their universality, and hence their behavior in more complicated processes where they have not yet been analytically calculated.

Photon-jet azimuthal correlations in proton-nucleus collisions are a promising tool for gaining information on the gluon distribution of the nucleus in the regime of nonlinear color fields. We compute such correlations from the process $g\to q\overline{q}\gamma$ in the rapidity regime where both the projectile and target light-cone momentum fractions are small. By integrating over the phase space of the quark which emits the photon, subject to the restriction that the photon picks up most of the transverse momentum (to pass an isolation cut), we effectively obtain a $g+A\to q\gamma$ process. For nearly back-to-back photon-jet configurations we find that it dominates over the leading-order process $q+A\to q\gamma$ by two less powers of $Q_{\perp }/Q_S$, where ${\mathit{Q}}_{\perp }$ and $Q_S$ denote the net photon-jet pair momentum and the saturation scale of the nucleus, respectively. We determine the transverse-momentum-dependent gluon distributions involved in $g+A\to q\gamma$ and the scale where they are evaluated. Finally, we provide analytic expressions for $⟨\cos n\varphi ⟩$ moments, where $\varphi$ is the angle between ${\mathit{Q}}_{\perp }$ and the average photon-jet transverse momentum ${\tilde{\mathit{P}}}_{\perp }$, and first qualitative estimates of their transverse momentum dependence.

We compute the one-loop effective action in unimodular gravity, starting from two different classical formulations of the theory. We find that the effective action is the same in both cases, and agrees with the one of general relativity.

Large vacuum fluctuations of a quantum stress tensor can be described by the asymptotic behavior of its probability distribution. Here we focus on stress tensor operators which have been averaged with a sampling function in time. The Minkowski vacuum state is not an eigenstate of the time-averaged operator, but can be expanded in terms of its eigenstates. We calculate the probability distribution and the cumulative probability distribution for obtaining a given value in a measurement of the time-averaged operator taken in the vacuum state. In these calculations, we study a specific operator that contributes to the stress-energy tensor of a massless scalar field in Minkowski spacetime, namely, the normal ordered square of the time derivative of the field. We analyze the rate of decrease of the tail of the probability distribution for different temporal sampling functions, such as compactly supported functions and the Lorentzian function. We find that the tails decrease relatively slowly, as exponentials of fractional powers, in agreement with previous work using the moments of the distribution. Our results lend additional support to the conclusion that large vacuum stress tensor fluctuations are more probable than large thermal fluctuations, and may have observable effects.

In the context of $f(R)$ gravity with a spatially flat FLRW metric containing an ideal fluid, we use the method of invariant transformations to specify families of models which are integrable. We find three families of $f(R)$ theories for which new analytical solutions are given and closed-form solutions are provided.

In the present work we study non-rotating dark stars in $f(R)$ modified theory of gravity. In particular, we have considered bosonic self-interacting dark matter modeled inside the star as a Bose-Einstein condensate, while as far as the modified theory of gravity is concerned we have assumed Starobinsky’s model $R+a{R}^2$. We solve the generalized structure equations numerically, and we obtain the mass-to-ratio relation for several different values of the parameter $a$, and for two different dark matter equation-of-states. Our results show that the dark matter stars become more compact in the R-squared gravity compared to general relativity, while at the same time the highest star mass is slightly increased in the modified gravitational theory. The numerical value of the highest star mass for each case has been reported.

In view of growing interest in tensor modes and their possible detection, we clarify the definition of tensor modes up to 2nd order in perturbation theory within the Hamiltonian formalism. Like in gauge theory, in cosmology the Hamiltonian is a suitable and consistent approach to reduce the gauge degrees of freedom. In this paper we employ the Faddeev-Jackiw method of Hamiltonian reduction. An appropriate set of gauge invariant variables that describe the dynamical degrees of freedom may be obtained by suitable canonical transformations in the phase space. We derive a set of gauge invariant variables up to 2nd order in perturbation expansion and for the first time we reduce the 3rd order action without adding gauge fixing terms. In particular, we are able to show the relation between the uniform-$\varphi$ and Newtonian slicings, and study the difference in the definition of tensor modes in these two slicings.

Cosmic ray (CR) physics has entered a precision-driven era. With the latest AMS-02 nuclei data (boron-to-carbon ratio, proton flux, helium flux, and antiproton-to-proton ratio), we perform a global fitting and constrain the primary source and propagation parameters of cosmic rays in the Milky Way by considering 3 schemes with different data sets (with and without $\overline{\mathrm{p}}/\mathrm{p}$ data) and different propagation models (diffusion-reacceleration and diffusion-reacceleration-convection models). We find that the data set with $\overline{\mathrm{p}}/\mathrm{p}$ data can remove the degeneracy between the propagation parameters effectively and it favors the model with a very small value of convection (or disfavors the model with convection). The separated injection spectrum parameters are used for proton and other nucleus species, which reveal the different breaks and slopes among them. Moreover, the helium abundance, antiproton production cross sections, and solar modulation are parametrized in our global fitting. Benefited from the self-consistence of the new data set, the fitting results show a little bias, and thus the disadvantages and limitations of the existed propagation models appear. Comparing to the best fit results for the local interstellar spectra ($\varphi =0$) with the VOYAGER-1 data, we find that the primary sources or propagation mechanisms should be different between proton and helium (or other heavier nucleus species). Thus, how to explain these results properly is an interesting and challenging question.

I introduce a modification of the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber (GRW) model in which the flashes (or space-time collapse events) source a classical gravitational field. The resulting semiclassical theory of Newtonian gravity preserves the statistical interpretation of quantum states of matter in contrast with mean field approaches. It can be seen as a discrete version of recent proposals of consistent hybrid quantum classical theories. The model is in agreement with known experimental data and introduces new falsifiable predictions: (1) single particles do not self-interact, (2) the $1/r$ gravitational potential of Newtonian gravity is cut off at short ($\lesssim {10}^{-7}\mathrm{m}$) distances, and (3) gravity makes spatial superpositions decohere at a rate inversely proportional to that coming from the vanilla GRW model. Together, the last two predictions make the model experimentally falsifiable for all values of its parameters.

We obtain the renormalization group improved expressions of the Wilson coefficients of the heavy quark effective theory Lagrangian with leading logarithmic approximation to $\mathcal{O}(1/m^3)$ for the spin-independent sector, which includes the heavy quark chromopolarizabilities. Our analysis includes the effects induced by spectator quarks. We observe that the numerical impact of these logarithms is very large in most cases.