CyberSec Research

Neutrino-cooled accretion disks can form in the aftermath of neutron-star mergers as well as during the collapse of rapidly rotating massive stars (collapsars) and the accretion-induced collapse of rapidly rotating white dwarfs. Due to Pauli blocking as electrons become degenerate at sufficiently high accretion rates $\dot{M}$, the resulting 'self-neutronization' of the dissociated accreting plasma makes these astrophysical systems promising sources of rapid neutron capture nucleosynthesis (the r-process). We present a one-dimensional general-relativistic, viscous-hydrodynamic model of neutrino-cooled accretion disks around black holes. With collapsars, super-collapsars and very massive star collapse in mind, we chart the composition of the accretion flow and systematically explore different radiatively efficient and inefficient accretion regimes with increasing $\dot M$, across a vast parameter space of $\dot{M}\sim 10^{-6}-10^6 M_\odot \,\text{s}^{-1}$, black hole masses of $M_\bullet\sim 1 - 10^4 M_\odot$ and dimensionless spins of $\chi_\bullet \in [0,1)$, as well as $\alpha$-viscosity values of $\alpha\sim 10^{-3}-1$. We show that these accretion regimes are separated by characteristic thresholds $\dot{M}_{\rm char}$ that follow power laws $\dot M_{\rm char}\propto M_{\bullet}^\alpha \alpha^\beta$ and that can be understood based on analytic approximations we derive. We find that outflows from such disks are promising sites of r-process nucleosynthesis up to $M_\bullet \lesssim 3000 M_\odot$. These give rise to lanthanide-bearing 'red' super-kilonovae transients mostly for $M_\bullet \lesssim 200-500 M_\odot$ and lanthanide suppressed 'blue' super-kilonovae for larger $M_\bullet$. Proton-rich outflows can develop specifically for large black hole masses ($M_\bullet \gtrsim 100 M_\odot$) in certain accretion regimes, which may give rise to proton-rich isotopes via the $\nu$p-process.

We present a new set of numerical-relativity simulations of merging binary neutron stars, aiming to identify possible observable signatures of the slope of the symmetry energy $L_{\rm sym}$. To achieve this goal, we employ a set of equations of state based on a parameterization of the covariant density functional theory of nuclear matter that allows controlled variations of $L_{\rm sym}$ and the skewness $Q_{\rm sat}$, holding the latter fixed. For a set of our simulations, we identify a steep energy gradient in the equation of state at subsaturation densities, which acts as a source of heating with subsequent stiffening produced by thermal support. Accounting for related structural modifications in the tidal deformability reconciles our results with theoretical expectations. On the other hand, we show that gravitational waves are unlikely to distinguish the role of $L_{\rm sym}$. In contrast to this, we find that the ejecta composition is significantly altered in our simulations, which employ an M1 moment scheme, when $L_{\rm sym}$ is varied. Based on our extracted dynamical ejecta properties, we compute r-process yields and find that they are distinct for the different $L_{\rm sym}$, especially at lower mass numbers $A \lesssim 120$. This suggests that electromagnetic counterparts are more likely to exhibit signatures; however, a direct connection to $L_{\rm sym}$ remains a challenge, given the complex interplay between details of the ejecta properties and the kilonova signal.

We examine whether the Teleparallel Equivalent of General Relativity (TEGR) can be formulated as a gauge theory in the language of connections on principal bundles. We argue in favor of using either the affine bundle with the Poincar\'e group or, equivalently, the orthonormal frame bundle with the Lorentz group as the structure group. Following the framework of Trautman--where gauge symmetries are determined using the absolute elements--we set to identify the absolute elements and gauge symmetries of TEGR. The problem of a non-dynamical teleparallel connection raises the question of whether it should be treated as an absolute element. If so, the gauge group of TEGR is potentially some undetermined subgroup of the diffeomorphism group. On the other hand, if the connection is allowed to be non-dynamical but the only absolute element is taken to be the canonical 1-form of the frame bundle, we recover the whole diffeomorphism group as the gauge group of TEGR.

Holographic complexity, as the bulk dual of quantum complexity, encodes the geometric structure of black hole interiors. Motivated by the complexity=anything proposal, we introduce the spectral representation for generating functions associated with codimension-one and codimension-zero holographic complexity measures. These generating functions exhibit a universal slope-ramp-plateau structure, analogous to the spectral form factor in chaotic quantum systems. In such systems, quantum complexity evolves universally, displaying long-time linear growth followed by saturation at late times. By employing the generating function formalism, we demonstrate that this universal behavior originates from random matrix universality in spectral statistics and from a particular pole structure of the matrix elements of the generating functions in the energy eigenbasis. Using the residue theorem, we prove that the existence of this pole structure is both a necessary and sufficient condition for the linear growth of complexity measures. Furthermore, we show that the late-time saturation plateau arises directly from the spectral level repulsion, a hallmark of quantum chaos.

The individual component spins of binary black holes (BBH) are difficult to resolve using gravitational-wave observations but carry key signatures of the processes shaping their formation and evolution. Recent analyses have found conflicting evidence for a sub-population of black holes with negligible spin, but the Default spin magnitude population model used in LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA analyses cannot formally accommodate an excess of systems with zero spin. In this work, we analyze several different simulated BBH populations to demonstrate that even in the face of this mismodeling, spinning and nonspinning populations can be reliably distinguished using the Default spin magnitude population model coupled with spin sorting. While typical analyses sort the binary components by their masses, sorting the components by their spin magnitudes instead offers a complementary view of the properties of individual systems consistent with equal mass and of population-level properties, given binary evolution processes like tidal-spin up that predict asymmetric spin magnitudes among the binary components. We conclude that current observations of the BBH population are inconsistent with a fully nonspinning population, but could be explained by a population with only one spinning black hole per binary or a population with up to 80% nonspinning sources.

We present a detailed, mathematically rigorous description of the construction procedure of Penrose diagrams for the example of the maximal analytic extension of the exterior Schwarzschild spacetime. To this end, we first outline the basic idea underlying Penrose diagrams, state the general requirements on the spacetimes to be visualized, and give a definition of Penrose diagrams. We then construct the Penrose diagram of the maximally analytically extended Schwarzschild spacetime and discuss the characteristics and properties corresponding to this particular Penrose diagram. As an application, we work out the differences between the spacetime and null variants of the canonical advanced Eddington-Finkelstein coordinate representations of the exterior Schwarzschild spacetime by explicitly constructing and visually analyzing Penrose diagrams equipped with foliations of the level sets of the respective Eddington-Finkelstein time and null coordinates. Throughout the course of the paper, we provide brief accounts of the relevant parts of the seminal publications on the exterior Schwarzschild solution by Schwarzschild himself, Kruskal, Eddington, Finkelstein, and Penrose. This paper is primarily of pedagogical nature aimed at graduate students in physics and applied mathematics (with a background in general relativity and differential geometry), serving mainly as an introduction to Penrose diagrams and coordinate representations of the exterior Schwarzschild spacetime.

We propose, in (3+1)-dimensional spacetimes, a novel astrophysical source of squeezed graviton states, due to superradiant axionic clouds surrounding rotating (Kerr-type) black holes (BH). The microscopic origin of these axions is diverse, ranging from the Kalb-Ramond (model-independent) axions and compactification axions in string theory, to \cm contorted geometries exemplified by a totally antisymmetric component of torsion in Einstein-Cartan theory. The axion fields couple to chiral gauge and gravitational Chern-Simons (CS) anomaly terms in the effective gravitational actions. In the presence of a Kerr BH background, such axions lead, upon acquiring a mass, to superradiance and the production of pairs of entangled gravitons in a squeezed state. The specific microscopic origin of the axions is not important, provided they are massive. This multimode squeezed-graviton state is examined through a Takagi-like decomposition, used in quantum optics. In the effective action it is shown that squeezing effects associated with conventional general relativity (GR) dominate, by many orders of magnitude, the corresponding effects due to the CS gravitational anomaly terms. For a sufficiently long lifetime of the axionic cloud of the BH, we find that significant squeezing (quantified through the average number of gravitons with respect to the appropriate vacuum) can be produced from the GR effects. It is also demonstrated explicitly that the structure of the entangled states (when the latter are expressed in a left-right polarization basis) depends highly on whether the GR or the anomalous CS effects produce the entanglement.

We model black holes as condensates of non-Abelian anyons forming a topologically ordered shell at the horizon. Combined with area quantization, the constrained fusion Hilbert space yields a discrete entropy spectrum consistent with the Bekenstein-Hawking area law. Assuming a quantized mass spectrum with nonuniform gaps, we derive a nonthermal radiation profile with a corrected Hawking temperature and entropy, including logarithmic and inverse-area corrections. This framework localizes quantum information to the horizon without invoking entanglement across it, offering a unitary evaporation mechanism governed by topological degrees of freedom. This offers a natural setting for resolving the information paradox without recourse to firewalls, remnants, or trans-horizon entanglement. We also show that the Hawking temperature arises from classical equipartition on the shell, explaining the thermal character of the spectrum at leading order. Overall, our results provide a microscopic, algebraic approach to the black hole information paradox and establish a bridge between quantum gravity and topological quantum computation.

Recent advances in noncommutative geometry and string theory have stimulated increasing research on noncommutative gravity. The detection of gravitational waves~(GW) opens a new window for testing this theory using observed data. In particular, the leading correction from noncommutative gravity to the GW of compact binary coalescences appears at the second post-Newtonian~(2PN) order. This correction is proportional to the dimensionless parameter $\Lambda\equiv|\theta^{0i}|/(l_Pt_P)$, where $\theta^{0i}$ denotes the antisymmetric tensor characterizing noncommutative spacetime, and $l_P, t_P$ represent the Plank length and time, respectively. Previous study have used the phase deviation from general relativity at the 2PN order, as measured in GW150914, to constrain noncommutative gravity, resulting in an upper bound of $\sqrt{\Lambda}<3.5$. Another analysis, based on multiple events from the GWTC-1 catalog, has obtained consistent bounds. In this work, we construct the noncommutative gravity waveform in the Parameterized Post-Einsteinian framework. Based on the \texttt{IMRPhenomXHM} template, we incorporate both the dominant (2,2) mode and several higher-order modes, including (2,1), (3,3), (3,2), and (4,4). We first reanalyze the GW150914 with a Bayesian parameter estimation and derive a 95th percentile upper bound on noncommutative gravity, obtaining $\sqrt{\Lambda}<0.68$. We then analyze GW190814 and obtain an even tighter 95th percentile upper bound of $\sqrt{\Lambda}<0.46$. This represent the strongest constraint on noncommutative gravity derived from real GW observations to date.

In this short note we find canonical form of Born-Infeld inspired gravity coupled to scalar fields using Faddeev-Jackiw approach. We show that canonical form of the action splits into two parts: First part has the same form as General Relativity canonical action while the matter part has complicated form as a consequence of the structure of Born-Infeld gravity action.

We construct Kaluza-Klein monopole solutions with scalar hair provied by a massive complex scalar field multiplet that minimally couples to five-dimensional Einstein gravity. Writing the scalar field multiplet in terms of the Wigner D-matrices, we introduce the ansatz of the scalar multiplet compatible with the symmetries of the Gross-Perry-Sorkin monopole, on which the scalar hair grows. We give the ansatz for a multiplet with arbitrary number of components, whereas we show numerical solutions of the hairy Kaluza-Klein monopole specifically for the cases of scalar triplet and quadruplet. These generaize the preceding study on a doublet \cite{Brihaye:2023vox}. We find that the range of the mass and angular momentum of the hairy solutions are larger for higher multiplets.

We present the most up-to-date constraints on axion early dark energy (AEDE) from cosmic microwave background (CMB) and baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements. In particular, we assess the impact of data from ground-based CMB experiments, the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) -- both with and without $Planck$ -- on constraints on AEDE. We also highlight the impact that BAO information from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has on these constraints. From CMB data alone, we do not find statistically significant evidence for the presence of AEDE, and we find only moderate reduction in the Hubble tension. From the latest SPT data alone, we find the maximal fractional contribution of AEDE to the cosmic energy budget is $f_{\rm EDE}\,<\,0.12$ at $95\,$% confidence level (CL), and the Hubble tension between the SPT and SH0ES results is reduced to the $2.3\,\sigma$ level. When combining the latest SPT, ACT, and $Planck$ datasets, we find $f_{\rm EDE}\,<\,0.091$ at $95\,$% CL and the Hubble tension at the $3.3\, \sigma$ level. In contrast, adding DESI data to the CMB datasets results in mild preference for AEDE and, in some cases, non-negligible reduction in the Hubble tension. From SPT+DESI, we find $f_{\rm EDE}\,=\,0.081^{+0.037}_{-0.052}$ at $68\,$% CL, and the Hubble tension reduces to $1.5\,\sigma$. From the combination of DESI with all three CMB experiments, we get $f_{\rm EDE}\,=\, 0.071^{+0.035}_{-0.038}$ at $68\,$% CL and a weak preference for AEDE over $\Lambda$CDM. This data combination, in turn, reduces the Hubble tension to $2.3\, \sigma$. We highlight that this shift in parameters when adding the DESI dataset is a manifestation of the discrepancy currently present between DESI and CMB experiments in the concordance model $\Lambda$CDM.

We shall investigate the inflation for the D-brane model, motivated by the modified gravity $F(\phi,T)$. This gravity has been recently introduced in the literature. The feasibility of the D-brane inflation theory in the $F(\phi,T)$-gravity has been studied in conjunction with the most recent Planck data. We shall analyze the slow-roll inflation in the context of the $F(\phi)T$-gravity, via the D-brane model. Then, we shall calculate the inflation dynamics to obtain the scalar spectral index ``$n_s$'' and the tensor-to-scalar ratio ``$r$''. Besides, we investigate the dynamics of the reheating for this model. Our model accurately covers the left-hand side of the Planck data and the D-brane inflation.

Gravitational waves (GWs) distort galaxy shapes through the tidal effect, offering a novel avenue to probe the nature of gravity. In this paper, we investigate how extra GW polarizations beyond those predicted by general relativity imprint observable signatures on galaxy shapes. Since galaxy shapes are measured as two-dimensional images projected onto the celestial sphere, we present three-dimensional statistical quantities of the projected tidal tensor sourced by the tensor perturbation. We show that the presence of extra polarization modes modifies both the amplitude and angular dependence of the correlation functions. Furthermore, we identify a distinct observational channel for probing parity violation in helicity-two and helicity-one modes. In particular, we show that if they propagate at different speeds, galaxy surveys can disentangle the source of parity violation. Our findings establish a theoretical framework for using upcoming large-scale galaxy surveys to test modified gravity theories through the polarization content of GWs.

In this paper, we investigate the Hamiltonian formulation of a spherically symmetric spacetime that corresponds to the interior of a Schwarzschild black hole. The resulting phase space involves two independent dynamical variables along with their conjugate momenta. We quantize the associated minisuperspace using the affine quantization method, which is particularly suited for systems with positive-definite configuration variables. We then explore whether the quantum effects encoded in this wave function can lead to the avoidance of classical singularities.

In this work, we investigate a Lagrangian model describing a particle constrained to move along non-degenerate conic sections, parameterized by the orbital eccentricity \( e \). In the non-relativistic regime, we apply the Dirac--Bergmann algorithm to identify a set of four second-class constraints, compute the corresponding Dirac brackets, and isolate the true physical degrees of freedom. This procedure yields a unified Hamiltonian treatment of circular (\( e = 0 \)), elliptical (\( 0 < e < 1 \)), parabolic (\( e = 1 \)), and hyperbolic (\( e > 1 \)) trajectories. We then extend the analysis to the relativistic case, where we observe a similar constraint structure and construct the associated Dirac brackets accordingly. Finally, using the Hamilton-Jacobi formalism, we identify a set of non-involutive constraints; by introducing generalized brackets, we restore integrability and derive the correct equations of motion. A comparative analysis of both formalisms highlights their complementary features and deepens our understanding of the dynamics governing particles restricted to conic geometries.

In addition to curvature singularities, electrovacuum black holes in general relativity exhibit thermodynamic singularities. These so-called Davies' points occur at non-extremal values of charge and spin where the heat capacity diverges and may indicate a type of theoretical incompleteness. The thermodynamic regularity of several families of static, asymptotically-flat spacetimes with bounded curvature invariants is examined using a theory-agnostic framework, showing that while they may be regular in physical space they are generally not in phase space. The inclusion of angular momentum, via the Newman-Janis algorithm, makes the set of such "doubly regular" objects especially restrictive. It is argued that, if thermodynamic regularity is to be considered a desirable property for an astrophysical black hole, these considerations could be used to narrow down the viable pool of regular extensions to the Kerr-Newman metric.

We employ multiple-scale analysis to systematically derive analytical approximations describing the cosmological propagation of gravitational waves beyond general relativity, in a framework with two interacting spin-2 fields with time-dependent couplings. Such techniques allow us to accurately track the evolution of a system with slowly evolving time-dependent couplings over a large number of oscillation periods. We focus on tensor modes propagating on sub-horizon scales in a universe dominated by dark energy and explicitly derive solutions for a general class of models. To illustrate the possible applications of our general scheme and further corroborate our analytical results, we calculate the evolution of tensor perturbations in some phenomenological toy models and compare them with numerical simulations. We show that, generically, the interactions of independent spin-2 fields lead to non-trivial modifications to the amplitude and phase of the detected waveform, which are different from those obtained in other modified gravity theories with a single graviton. This provides an avenue to test and constrain gravitational models with new fundamental physical fields.