17693797
Duality invariance of black hole creation rates
Pair creation of electrically charged black holes and its dual process, pair creation of magnetically charged black holes, are considered. It is shown that the creation rates are equal provided the boundary conditions for the two processes are dual to one another. This conclusion follows from a careful analysis of boundary terms and boundary conditions for the Maxwell action. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}
16734842
Black Hole Thermodynamics in a Box
Simple calculations indicate that the partition function for a black hole is defined only if the temperature is fixed on a finite boundary. Consequences of this result are discussed. (Contribution to the Proceedings of the Lanczos Centenary Conference.)
119986427
On the Poisson brackets of differentiable generators in classical field theory
The canonical formulation of field theory on open spaces is considered. It is proved, under appropriate assumptions, that the Poisson bracket of two differentiable generators is also a differentiable generator.
6269112
Action functionals for relativistic perfect fluids
Action functionals describing relativistic perfect fluids are presented. Two of these actions apply to fluids whose equations of state are specified by giving the fluid energy density as a function of particle number density and entropy per particle. Other actions apply to fluids whose equations of state are specified in terms of other choices of dependent and independent fluid variables. Particular cases include actions for isentropic fluids and pressureless dust. The canonical Hamiltonian forms of these actions are derived, symmetries and conserved charges are identified, and the boundary value and initial value problems are discussed. As in previous works on perfect fluid actions, the action functionals considered depend on certain Lagrange multipliers and Lagrangian coordinate fields. Particular attention is paid to the interpretations of these variables and to their relationships to the physical properties of the fluid.
16432578
Dust as a standard of space and time in canonical quantum gravity.
The coupling of the metric to an incoherent dust introduces into spacetime a privileged dynamical reference frame and time foliation. The comoving coordinates of the dust particles and the proper time along the dust worldlines become canonical coordinates in the phase space of the system. The Hamiltonian constraint can be resolved with respect to the momentum that is canonically conjugate to the dust time. Formal imposition of the resolved constraint as an operator restriction on the quantum states yields a functional Schr\"odinger equation. The ensuing Hamiltonian density has an extraordinary feature: it depends only on the geometric variables, not on the dust coordinates or time. This has three important consequences. First, the functional Schr\"odinger equation can be solved by separating the dust time from the geometric variables. Second, disregarding the standard factor-ordering difficulties, the Hamiltonian densities strongly commute and therefore can be simultaneously defined by spectral analysis. Third, the standard constraint system of vacuum gravity is cast into a form in which it generates a true Lie algebra. The particles of dust introduce into space a privileged system of coordinates that allows the supermomentum constraint to be solved explicitly. The Schr\"odinger equation yields a formally conserved inner product that can be written in terms of either the instantaneous state functionals or the solutions of constraints. Gravitational observables admit a similar dual representation. Examples of observables are given, though neither the intrinsic metric nor the extrinsic curvature are observables. This comes as close as one can reasonably expect to a satisfactory phenomenological quantization scheme that is free of most of the problems of time.
119005465
Modifying the Einstein equations off the constraint hypersurface
A new technique is presented for modifying the Einstein evolution equations off the constraint hypersurface. With this approach the evolution equations for the constraints can be specified freely. The equations of motion for the gravitational field variables are modified by the addition of terms that are linear and nonlocal in the constraints. These terms are obtained from solutions of the linearized Einstein constraints.
119124709
Searching for gravitational radiation from binary black hole MACHOs in the galactic halo
The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) is one of a new generation of detectors of gravitational radiation. The existence of gravitational radiation was first predicted by Einstein in 1916, however gravitational waves have not yet been directly observed. One source of gravitation radiation is binary inspiral. Two compact bodies orbiting each other, such as a pair of black holes, lose energy to gravitational radiation. As the system loses energy the bodies spiral towards each other. This causes their orbital speed and the amount of gravitational radiation to increase, producing a characteristic ``chirp'' waveform in the LIGO sensitive band. In this thesis, matched filtering of LIGO science data is used to search for low mass binary systems in the halo of dark matter surrounding the Milky Way. Observations of gravitational microlensing events of stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud suggest that some fraction of the dark matter in the halo may be in the form of Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs). It has been proposed that low mass black holes formed in the early universe may be a component of the MACHO population; some fraction of these black hole MACHOs will be in binary systems and detectable by LIGO. The inspiral from a MACHO binary composed of two 0.5 solar mass black holes enters the LIGO sensitive band around 40 Hz. The chirp signal increases in amplitude and frequency, sweeping through the sensitive band to 4400 Hz in 140 seconds. By using evidence from microlensing events and theoretical predictions of the population an upper limit is placed on the rate of black hole MACHO inspirals in the galactic halo.
125126984
The CDF forward electromagnetic calorimeter
51039474
When can Gravitational-wave Observations Distinguish between Black Holes and Neutron Stars?
Gravitational-wave observations of compact binaries have the potential to uncover the distribution of masses and spins of black holes and neutron stars in the universe. Th e binary components’ physical parameters can be inferred from their effect on the phasing of the gravitati onal-wave signal, but a partial degeneracy between the components’ mass ratio and their spins limits our abilit y to measure the individual component masses. At the typical signal amplitudes expected by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (signal-to-noise ratios between 10 and 20), we show that it will in many cases be difficult to distinguish whether the components are neutron stars or black holes. We identify when the masses of the binary components could be unambiguously measured outside the range of current observations: a system with a chirp mass M � 0.871 M⊙ would unambiguously contain the smallest-mass neutron star observed, and a system with M � 2.786 M⊙ must contain a black hole. However, additional information would be needed to distinguish between a binary containing two 1.35 M⊙ neutron stars and an exotic neutron-star‐black-hole binar y. We also identify those configurations that could be unambiguously identified as bla ck-hole binaries, and show how the observation of an electromagnetic counterpart to a neutron-star‐black-h ole binary could be used to constrain the black-hole spin. Subject headings: black hole physics — gravitational waves — stars: neutron
8628997
Searching for gravitational waves from binary inspirals with LIGO
We describe the current status of the search for gravitational waves from inspiralling compact binary systems in LIGO data. We review the result from the first scientific run of LIGO (S1). We present the goals of the search of data taken in the second scientific run (S2) and describe the differences between the methods used in S1 and S2.
117621820
Track finding efficiency in BABAR
Abstract We describe several studies to measure the charged track reconstruction efficiency and asymmetry of the B A B AR detector. The first two studies measure the tracking efficiency of a charged particle using τ and initial state radiation decays. The third uses the τ decays to study the asymmetry in tracking, the fourth measures the tracking efficiency for low momentum tracks, and the last measures the reconstruction efficiency of K S 0 particles. The first section also examines the stability of the measurements vs. B A B AR running periods.