There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

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

Over the past three decades, black holes have played an important role in quantum gravity, mathematical physics, numerical relativity and gravitational wave phenomenology. However, conceptual settings and mathematical models used to discuss them have varied considerably from one area to another. Over the last five years a new, quasi-local framework was introduced to analyze diverse facets of black holes in a unified manner. In this framework, evolving black holes are modelled by dynamical horizons and black holes in equilibrium by isolated horizons. We review basic properties of these horizons and summarize applications to mathematical physics, numerical relativity, and quantum gravity. This paradigm has led to significant generalizations of several results in black hole physics. Specifically, it has introduced a more physical setting for black hole thermodynamics and for black hole entropy calculations in quantum gravity, suggested a phenomenological model for hairy black holes, provided novel techniques to extract physics from numerical simulations, and led to new laws governing the dynamics of black holes in exact general relativity.

/pdf/isolated-and-dynamical-horizons-and-their-applications-2ojdjee2p1.pdf

Isolated and dynamical horizons and their applications

We review the current status of general relativistic studies for the coalescence of black hole-neutron star (BH-NS) binaries. First, procedures for a solution of BH-NS binaries in quasi-equilibrium circular orbits and the numerical results, such as quasi-equilibrium sequence and mass-shedding limit, of the high-precision computation, are summarized. Then, the current status of numerical-relativity simulations for the merger of BH-NS binaries is described. We summarize our understanding for the merger and/or tidal disruption processes, the criterion for tidal disruption, the properties of the remnant formed after the tidal disruption, gravitational waveform, and gravitational-wave spectrum.

/pdf/coalescence-of-black-hole-neutron-star-binaries-2agccc7152.pdf

Coalescence of Black Hole-Neutron Star Binaries

Constraints on dark matter density and axion mass from the large-scale structure of spacetime

https://www.luth.obspm.fr/~luthier/gourgoulhon/pdf/GourgJ06a.pdf

A 3+1 perspective on null hypersurfaces and isolated horizons

The isolated horizon formalism recently introduced by Ashtekar et al. aims at providing a quasi-local concept of a black hole in equilibrium in an otherwise possibly dynamical spacetime. In this formalism, a hierarchy of geometrical structures is constructed on a null hypersurface. On the other side, the 3+1 formulation of general relativity provides a powerful setting for studying the spacetime dynamics, in particular gravitational radiation from black hole systems. Here we revisit the kinematics and dynamics of null hypersurfaces by making use of some 3+1 slicing of spacetime. In particular, the additional structures induced on null hypersurfaces by the 3+1 slicing permit a natural extension to the full spacetime of geometrical quantities defined on the null hypersurface. This 4-dimensional point of view facilitates the link between the null and spatial geometries. We proceed by reformulating the isolated horizon structure in this framework. We also reformulate previous works, such as Damour's black hole mechanics, and make the link with a previous 3+1 approach of black hole horizon, namely the membrane paradigm. We explicit all geometrical objects in terms of 3+1 quantities, putting a special emphasis on the conformal 3+1 formulation. This is in particular relevant for the initial data problem of black hole spacetimes for numerical relativity. Illustrative examples are provided by considering various slicings of Schwarzschild and Kerr spacetimes.

We present a set of boundary conditions for solving the elliptic equations in the initial data problem for space-times containing a black hole, together with a number of constraints to be satisfied by the otherwise freely specifiable standard parameters of the conformal thin sandwich formulation. These conditions altogether are sufficient for the construction of a horizon that is instantaneously in equilibrium in the sense of the isolated horizons formalism. We then investigate the application of these conditions to the initial data problem of binary black holes and discuss the relation of our analysis with other proposals that exist in the literature.

/pdf/inner-boundary-conditions-for-black-hole-initial-data-4ih3ukel40.pdf

José Luis Jaramillo

Papers

A 3+1 perspective on null hypersurfaces and isolated horizons

A 3+1 perspective on null hypersurfaces and isolated horizons

Inner boundary conditions for black hole initial data derived from isolated horizons