81234
Levi-Civita solutions coupled with electromagnetic fields
The local and global properties of the Levi-Civita (LC) solutions coupled with an electromagnetic field are studied and some limits to the vacuum LC solutions are given, from which the physical and geometrical interpretations of the free parameters involved in the solutions are made clear. Sources for both the LC vacuum solutions and the LC solutions coupled with an electromagnetic field are studied, and in particular it is found that all the LC vacuum solutions with σ ≥ 0 can be produced by cylindrically symmetric thin shells that satisfy all the energy conditions, weak, dominant and strong. When the electromagnetic field is present, the situation changes dramatically. In the case of a purely magnetic field, all the solutions can be produced by physically acceptable cylindrical thin shells, while in the case of a purely electric field, no such shells are found for any choice of the free parameters involved in the solutions.
881828
Search for small trans-Neptunian objects by the TAOS project
The Taiwan-America Occultation Survey (TAOS) aims to determine the number of small icy bodies in the outer reach of the Solar System by means of stellar occultation. An array of 4 robotic small (D=0.5 m), wide-field (f/1.9) telescopes have been installed at Lulin Observatory in Taiwan to simultaneously monitor some thousand of stars for such rare occultation events. Because a typical occultation event by a TNO a few km across will last for only a fraction of a second, fast photometry is necessary. A special CCD readout scheme has been devised to allow for stellar photometry taken a few times per second. Effective analysis pipelines have been developed to process stellar light curves and to correlate any possible flux changes among all telescopes. A few billion photometric measurements have been collected since the routine survey began in early 2005. Our preliminary result of a very low detection rate suggests a deficit of small TNOs down to a few km size, consistent with the extrapolation of some recent studies of larger (30-100 km) TNOs.
14417029
Asymptotes of solutions of a perfect fluid coupled with a cosmological constant in four-dimensional spacetime with toroidal symmetry
AbstractAsymptotes of solutions of a perfect fluid when coupled with a cosmological constant in four-dimensional spacetime with toroidal symmetry are studied. In particular, it is found that the problem of self-similar solutions of the first kind for a fluid with the equation of state, p = kρ, can be reduced to solving a master equation of the form,

$$ 2 F(q, k)\frac{q''(\xi)}{q'(\xi)} - G(q,k) q'(\xi) = \frac{4}{\xi}. $$

For k = 0 and k = −1/3 the general solutions are obtained and their main local and global properties are studied in detail.
119108211
Cosmology in nonrelativistic general covariant theory of gravity
Horava and Melby-Thompson recently proposed a new version of the Horava-Lifshitz theory of gravity, in which the spin-0 graviton is eliminated by introducing a Newtonian prepotential {phi} and a local U(1) gauge field A. In this paper, we first derive the corresponding Hamiltonian, supermomentum constraints, the dynamical equations, and the equations for {phi} and A, in the presence of matter fields. Then, we apply the theory to cosmology and obtain the modified Friedmann equation and the conservation law of energy, in addition to the equations for {phi} and A. When the spatial curvature is different from zero, terms behaving like dark radiation and stiff-fluid exist, from which, among other possibilities, a bouncing universe can be constructed. We also study linear perturbations of the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe with any given spatial curvature k, and we derive the most general formulas for scalar perturbations. The vector and tensor perturbations are the same as those recently given by one of the present authors [A. Wang, Phys. Rev. D 82, 124063 (2010).] in the setup of Sotiriou, Visser, and Weinfurtner. Applying these formulas to the Minkowski background, we have shown explicitly that the scalar and vector perturbations of the metric indeed vanish, and the onlymore » remaining modes are the massless spin-2 gravitons.« less
119351300
Kink stability of self-similar solutions of scalar field in 2 + 1 gravity
The kink stability of self-similar solutions of a massless scalar field with circular symmetry in 2 + 1 gravity is studied, and found that such solutions are unstable against the kink perturbations along the sonic line (self-similar horizon). However, when perturbations outside the sonic line are considered, and taking the ones along the sonic line as their boundary conditions, we find that non-trivial perturbations do not exist. In other words, the consideration of perturbations in the whole spacetime limits the unstable mode of the perturbations found along the sonic line, and the kink instability rises because of the incomplete treatment of the problem. As a result, the critical solution for the scalar collapse remains critical even after the kink perturbations are taken into account.
117192538
Rigidly Rotating Dust in General Relativity
A solution to the Einstein field equations that represents a rigidly rotating dust accompanied by a thin matter shell of the same type is found.
16650945
On curvature coupling and quintessence fine-tuning
We discuss the phenomenological model in which the potential energy of the quintessence field depends linearly on the energy density of the spatial curvature. We find that the pressure of the scalar field takes a different form when the potential of the scalar field also depends on the scale factor and the energy momentum tensor of the scalar field can be expressed as the form of a perfect fluid. A general coupling is proposed to explain the current accelerating expansion of the Universe and solve the fine-tuning problem.