119347367
Critical Phenomena in Gravitational Collapse: The Studies So Far
Studies of black hole formation from gravitational collapse have revealed interesting non-linear phenomena at the threshold of black hole formation. In particular, in 1993 Choptuik studied the collapse of a massless scalar field with spherical symmetry and found some behaviour, which is quite similar to the critical phenomena well-known in Statistical Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory. Universality and echoing of the critical solution and power-law scaling of the black hole masses have given rise to the name Critical Phenomena in Gravitational Collapse. Choptuik's results were soon confirmed both numerically and semi-analytically, and have extended to various other matter fields. In this paper, we shall give a brief introduction to this fascinating and relatively new area, and provide an updated publication list. An analytical "toy" model of critical collapse is presented, and some current investigations are given.
109935503
No-Go theorem in spacetimes with two commuting spacelike killing vectors
Four-dimensional Riemannian spacetimes with two commuting spacelike Killing vectors are studied in Einstein's theory of gravity, and found that no outer apparent horizons exist, provided that the dominant energy condition holds.
119227824
Cosmological constant and late transient acceleration of the universe in the Horava-Witten Heterotic M-Theory on S^{1}/Z_{2}
Abstract Orbifold branes are studied in the framework of the 11-dimensional Horava–Witten heterotic M-theory. It is found that the effective cosmological constant can be easily lowered to its current observational value by the mechanism of large extra dimensions. The domination of this constant over the evolution of the universe is only temporary. Due to the interaction of the bulk and the branes, the universe will be in its decelerating expansion phase again in the future, whereby all problems connected with a far future de Sitter universe are resolved.
10393301
On the sources of static plane symmetric vacuum space-times
Abstract The sources of static vacuum plane space-times with reflection symmetry are considered. It is argued that the counterpart of the Einstein theory to the gravitational field of a massive Newtonian plane should be described by the Rindler solution, which represents also a uniform gravitational field, and the test particles moving in which have constant accelerations.
119168760
Homothetic self-similar solutions of three-dimensional Brans-Dicke gravity
All homothetic self-similar solutions of the Brans-Dicke scalar field in three-dimensional spacetime with circular symmetry are found in closed form.
2444705
Gravitational and particle radiation from long cosmic strings
Gravitational and massless particle radiation from infinitely long cosmic strings with finite thickness is studied by constructing analytic solutions to the Einstein field equations with certain forms of energy - momentum tensor. Using Thorne's -energy arguments, it is shown that the radiation always carries away energy. As a result, the angle defect outside the string is less than that in the non-radiation case. Since the solutions are exact, the back reaction of the radiation is automatically taken into account. In fact, it is shown that because of this back reaction the spacetime is always singular on the symmetry axis. The singularity is a scalar one and not removable.
123322377
PLANAR DOMAIN WALLS COUPLED WITH PURE RADIATION FIELDS
All the exact solutions of the Einstein-Maxwell-Weyl equations are given, which represent planar domain walls coupled with electromagnetic and neutrino radiation fields. Some specific solutions are studied.
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.
5973680
Shear-free radiating collapse and conformal flatness
Here we study some general properties of spherical shear-free collapse. Its general solution when imposing conformal atness is re-obtained (Refs. 1 and 2) and matched to the outgoing Vaidya spacetime. We propose a simple model satisfying these conditions and study its physical consequences. Special attention deserve, the role played by relaxational processes and the conspicuous link betweeen dissipation and density inhomogeneity.
118411966
Elastic Scattering of Positive Kaons on Polarized Deuterons at 1.5 Gev/c.
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.