On September 14, 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC the two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory simultaneously observed a transient gravitational-wave signal. The signal sweeps upwards in frequency from 35 to 250 Hz with a peak gravitational-wave strain of 1.0×10(-21). It matches the waveform predicted by general relativity for the inspiral and merger of a pair of black holes and the ringdown of the resulting single black hole. The signal was observed with a matched-filter signal-to-noise ratio of 24 and a false alarm rate estimated to be less than 1 event per 203,000 years, equivalent to a significance greater than 5.1σ. The source lies at a luminosity distance of 410(-180)(+160)  Mpc corresponding to a redshift z=0.09(-0.04)(+0.03). In the source frame, the initial black hole masses are 36(-4)(+5)M⊙ and 29(-4)(+4)M⊙, and the final black hole mass is 62(-4)(+4)M⊙, with 3.0(-0.5)(+0.5)M⊙c(2) radiated in gravitational waves. All uncertainties define 90% credible intervals. These observations demonstrate the existence of binary stellar-mass black hole systems. This is the first direct detection of gravitational waves and the first observation of a binary black hole merger.

/pdf/the-observation-of-gravitational-waves-from-a-binary-black-58srpupgg9.pdf

The Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger

Unified cosmic history in modified gravity: from F(R) theory to Lorentz non-invariant models

QUANTUM gravitational effects are usually ignored in calculations of the formation and evolution of black holes. The justification for this is that the radius of curvature of space-time outside the event horizon is very large compared to the Planck length (Għ/c3)1/2 ≈ 10−33 cm, the length scale on which quantum fluctuations of the metric are expected to be of order unity. This means that the energy density of particles created by the gravitational field is small compared to the space-time curvature. Even though quantum effects may be small locally, they may still, however, add up to produce a significant effect over the lifetime of the Universe ≈ 1017 s which is very long compared to the Planck time ≈ 10−43 s. The purpose of this letter is to show that this indeed may be the case: it seems that any black hole will create and emit particles such as neutrinos or photons at just the rate that one would expect if the black hole was a body with a temperature of (κ/2π) (ħ/2k) ≈ 10−6 (M/M)K where κ is the surface gravity of the black hole1. As a black hole emits this thermal radiation one would expect it to lose mass. This in turn would increase the surface gravity and so increase the rate of emission. The black hole would therefore have a finite life of the order of 1071 (M/M)−3 s. For a black hole of solar mass this is much longer than the age of the Universe. There might, however, be much smaller black holes which were formed by fluctuations in the early Universe2. Any such black hole of mass less than 1015 g would have evaporated by now. Near the end of its life the rate of emission would be very high and about 1030 erg would be released in the last 0.1 s. This is a fairly small explosion by astronomical standards but it is equivalent to about 1 million 1 Mton hydrogen bombs. It is often said that nothing can escape from a black hole. But in 1974, Stephen Hawking realized that, owing to quantum effects, black holes should emit particles with a thermal distribution of energies — as if the black hole had a temperature inversely proportional to its mass. In addition to putting black-hole thermodynamics on a firmer footing, this discovery led Hawking to postulate 'black hole explosions', as primordial black holes end their lives in an accelerating release of energy.

Black Hole Explosions

Superstring theoryをめぐって(放談室)

Classical generalization of general relativity is considered as gravitational alternative for unified description of the early-time inflation with late-time cosmic acceleration. The structure and cosmological properties of number of modified theories, including traditional $F(R)$ and Hořava-Lifshitz $F(R)$ gravity, scalar-tensor theory, string-inspired and Gauss-Bonnet theory, non-local gravity, non-minimally coupled models, and power-counting renormalizable covariant gravity are discussed. Different representations and relations between such theories are investigated. It is shown that some versions of above theories may be consistent with local tests and may provide qualitatively reasonable unified description of inflation with dark energy epoch. The cosmological reconstruction of different modified gravities is made in great detail. It is demonstrated that eventually any given universe evolution may be reconstructed for the theories under consideration: the explicit reconstruction is applied to accelerating spatially-flat FRW universe. Special attention is paid to Lagrange multiplier constrained and conventional $F(R)$ gravities, for last theory the effective $\Lambda$CDM era and phantom-divide crossing acceleration are obtained. The occurrence of Big Rip and other finite-time future singularities in modified gravity is reviewed as well as its curing via the addition of higher-derivative gravitational invariants.

Motivated by the holographic principle, it has been suggested that the dark energy density may be inversely proportional to the area of the event horizon of the Universe. However, such a model would have a causality problem. In this paper, we propose to replace the future event horizon area with the inverse of the Ricci scalar curvature. We show that this model does not only avoid the causality problem and is phenomenologically viable, but also naturally solves the coincidence problem of dark energy. Our analysis of the evolution of density perturbations show that the matter power spectra and cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropy is only slightly affected by such modification.

Holographic dark energy model from Ricci scalar curvature

According to Babichev et al., the accretion of a phantom test fluid onto a Schwarzschild black hole will induce the mass of the black hole to decrease, however the backreaction was ignored in their calculation. Using new exact solutions describing black holes in a background Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe, we find that the physical black hole mass may instead increase due to the accretion of phantom energy. If this is the case, and the future universe is dominated by phantom dark energy, the black hole apparent horizon and the cosmic apparent horizon will eventually coincide and, after that, the black hole singularity will become naked in finite comoving time before the big rip occurs, violating the cosmic censorship conjecture.

Does the mass of a black hole decrease due to the accretion of phantom energy

Poletti and Wiltshire have shown that, with the exception of a pure cosmological constant, the solution of a dilaton black hole in the background of de Sitter or anti-de Sitter universe, does not exist in the presence of one Liouville-type dilaton potential. In this work we obtain the dilaton black-hole solutions in the background of the de Sitter or anti-de Sitter universe, with the combination of three Liouville-type dilaton potentials.

Dilaton black holes in the de Sitter or anti-de Sitter universe

The theory of statistical thermodynamics tells us the equipartition law of energy does not hold in the limit of very low temperatures. It is found the Debye model is very successful in explaining the experimental results for most of the solid objects. Motivated by this fact, we modify the entropic force formula which is proposed very recently. Since the Unruh temperature is proportional to the strength of the gravitational field, so the modified entropic force formula is an extension of the Newtonian gravity to the weak field. On the contrary, general relativity extends Newtonian gravity to the strong field case. Corresponding to Debye temperature, there exists a Debye acceleration g{sub D}. It is found the Debye acceleration is g{sub D}=10{sup -15} N kg{sup -1}. This acceleration is very much smaller than the gravitational acceleration 10{sup -4} N kg{sup -1} which is felt by Neptune and the gravitational acceleration 10{sup -10} N kg{sup -1} felt by the Sun. Therefore, the modified entropic force can be very well approximated by the Newtonian gravity in the Solar System and in the Galaxy. With this Debye acceleration, we find the current cosmic speeding up can be explained without invoking any kind of dark energy.

Modified Entropic Force

We explore the cosmic evolution of a scalar field with the kinetic term coupled to the Einstein tensor. We find that, in the absence of other matter sources or in the presence of only pressureless matter, the scalar behaves as pressureless matter and the sound speed of the scalar is vanishing. These properties enable the scalar field to be a candidate of cold dark matter. By also considering the scalar potential, we find the scalar field may play the role of both dark matter and dark energy. In this case, the equation of state of the scalar can cross the phantom divide, but this can lead to the sound speed becoming superluminal as it crosses the divide, and so is physically forbidden. Finally, if the kinetic term is coupled to more than one Einstein tensor, we find the equation of state is always approximately equal to -1 whether the potential is flat or not, and so the scalar may also be a candidate for the inflaton.

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1475-7516/2010/06/023/pdf

Changjun Gao

Papers

Holographic dark energy model from Ricci scalar curvature

Does the mass of a black hole decrease due to the accretion of phantom energy

Dilaton black holes in the de Sitter or anti-de Sitter universe

Modified Entropic Force

When scalar field is kinetically coupled to the Einstein tensor