Modified Gravity and Cosmology

Gravitational Field of a Spinning Mass as an Example of Algebraically Special Metrics

Quasinormal modes are eigenmodes of dissipative systems. Perturbations of classical gravitational backgrounds involving black holes or branes naturally lead to quasinormal modes. The analysis and classification of the quasinormal spectra require solving non-Hermitian eigenvalue problems for the associated linear differential equations. Within the recently developed gauge-gravity duality, these modes serve as an important tool for determining the near-equilibrium properties of strongly coupled quantum field theories, in particular their transport coefficients, such as viscosity, conductivity and diffusion constants. In astrophysics, the detection of quasinormal modes in gravitational wave experiments would allow precise measurements of the mass and spin of black holes as well as new tests of general relativity. This review is meant as an introduction to the subject, with a focus on the recent developments in the field.

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Quasinormal modes of black holes and black branes

Black branes in AdS5 appear in a four parameter family labeled by their velocity and temperature. Promoting these parameters to Goldstone modes or collective coordinate fields—arbitrary functions of the coordinates on the boundary of AdS5—we use Einstein's equations together with regularity requirements and boundary conditions to determine their dynamics. The resultant equations turn out to be those of boundary fluid dynamics, with specific values for fluid parameters. Our analysis is perturbative in the boundary derivative expansion but is valid for arbitrary amplitudes. Our work may be regarded as a derivation of the nonlinear equations of boundary fluid dynamics from gravity. As a concrete application we find an explicit expression for the expansion of this fluid stress tensor including terms up to second order in the derivative expansion.

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Nonlinear fluid dynamics from gravity

The observable universe could be a 1 + 3-surface (the “brane”) embedded in a 1 + 3 + d-dimensional spacetime (the “bulk”), with Standard Model particles and fields trapped on the brane while gravity is free to access the bulk. At least one of the d extra spatial dimensions could be very large relative to the Planck scale, which lowers the fundamental gravity scale, possibly even down to the electroweak (∼ TeV) level. This revolutionary picture arises in the framework of recent developments in M theory. The 1 + 10-dimensional M theory encompasses the known 1 + 9-dimensional superstring theories, and is widely considered to be a promising potential route to quantum gravity. General relativity cannot describe gravity at high enough energies and must be replaced by a quantum gravity theory, picking up significant corrections as the fundamental energy scale is approached. At low energies, gravity is localized at the brane and general relativity is recovered, but at high energies gravity “leaks” into the bulk, behaving in a truly higher-dimensional way. This introduces significant changes to gravitational dynamics and perturbations, with interesting and potentially testable implications for high-energy astrophysics, black holes, and cosmology. Brane-world models offer a phenomenological way to test some of the novel predictions and corrections to general relativity that are implied by M theory. This review discusses the geometry, dynamics and perturbations of simple brane-world models for cosmology and astrophysics, mainly focusing on warped 5-dimensional brane-worlds based on the Randall-Sundrum models.

Brane-World Gravity

The vacuum Einstein equations in five dimensions are shown to admit a solution describing a stationary asymptotically flat spacetime regular on and outside an event horizon of topology ${S}^{1}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{S}^{2}$. It describes a rotating ``black ring.'' This is the first example of a stationary asymptotically flat vacuum solution with an event horizon of nonspherical topology. The existence of this solution implies that the uniqueness theorems valid in four dimensions do not have simple five-dimensional generalizations. It is suggested that increasing the spin of a spherical black hole beyond a critical value results in a transition to a black ring, which can have an arbitrarily large angular momentum for a given mass.

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A Rotating Black Ring Solution in Five Dimensions

All purely bosonic supersymmetric solutions of minimal supergravity in five dimensions are classified. The solutions preserve either one half or all of the supersymmetry. Explicit examples of new solutions are given, including a large family of plane-fronted waves and a maximally supersymmetric analogue of the Godel universe which lifts to a solution of 11-dimensional supergravity that preserves 20 supersymmetries.

All supersymmetric solutions of minimal supergravity in five- dimensions

We review black-hole solutions of higher-dimensional vacuum gravity and higher-dimensional supergravity theories. The discussion of vacuum gravity is pedagogical, with detailed reviews of Myers-Perry solutions, black rings, and solution-generating techniques. We discuss black-hole solutions of maximal supergravity theories, including black holes in anti-de Sitter space. General results and open problems are discussed throughout.

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Black Holes in Higher Dimensions

Gravitational collapse of matter trapped on a brane will produce a black hole on the brane. We discuss such black holes in the models of Randall and Sundrum where our universe is viewed as a domain wall in five dimensional anti-de Sitter space. We present evidence that a non-rotating uncharged black hole on the domain wall is described by a ``black cigar'' solution in five dimensions.

Brane world black holes

Supersymmetric, asymptotically AdS5, black hole solutions of five dimensional gauged supergravity coupled to arbitrarily many abelian vector multiplets are presented. The general nature of supersymmetric solutions of this theory is discussed. All maximally supersymmetric solutions of this theory (with or without gauging) are obtained.

Harvey S. Reall

Papers

A Rotating Black Ring Solution in Five Dimensions

All supersymmetric solutions of minimal supergravity in five- dimensions

Black Holes in Higher Dimensions

Brane world black holes

General supersymmetric AdS5 black holes