Strong Gravity

I discuss a model for particle acceleration in the current sheet separating the open and closed field line regions, and crossing the neutral line region, of a pulsar's magnetosphere, which has substantial kinship to the phenomena observed in planetary magnetospheres within the solar system. Possible applications to gamma ray emission from pulsars are also described.

A remarkable result from heavy ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider is that shortly after a collision, the medium produced behaves as a nearly ideal liquid. The system is very dynamic and evolves from a state of two colliding nuclei to a liquid in a time roughly equivalent to the time it takes light to cross a proton. Understanding the mechanisms behind the rapid approach to a liquid state is a challenging task. In recent years holography has emerged as a powerful tool to study non-equilibrium phenomena, mapping the (challenging) dynamics of quantum systems onto the dynamics of classical gravitational systems. The creation of a liquid in a quantum theory maps onto the classical process of gravitational collapse and black hole formation. I will describe how one can use holography to study processes which mimic the dynamics of heavy ion collisions.

Over the last decade there has been strong interest in the theory and phenomenology of particle propagation in quantum spacetime. The main results concern possible Planck-scale modifications of the "dispersion" relation between energy and momentum of a particle. I review results establishing that these modifications can be tested using observations of gamma rays from sources at cosmological distances. And I report recent progress in the understanding of the implications of spacetime expansion for such studies. I also discuss recent preliminary results suggesting that the same Planck-scale modifications of the dispersion relation might have an unexpected role in gravitational collapse.

Coincident detections of electromagnetic and gravitational wave signatures from the merger of supermassive binary black holes are the next observational grand challenge. Such detections will provide a wealth of opportunities to study gravitational physics, accretion physics, and cosmology. Understanding the conditions under which coincidences of electromagnetic and gravitational wave signatures arise during supermassive black hole mergers is therefore of paramount importance, requiring multi-scale/physics computational modeling. I will given an overview of these numerical studies and in particular focus on our effort to model the merger of supermassive black hole binaries in the presence of gaseous environments.

For the past century, there has been much discussion and debate about the equations of motion satisfied by a classical point charge when the effects of its own electromagnetic field are taken into account. Derivations by Abraham (1903), Lorentz (1904), Dirac (1938) and others suggest that the "self-force" (or "radiation reaction force") on a point charge is given in the non-relativistic limit by a term proportional to the time derivative of the acceleration of the charge. However, the resulting equations of motion then become third order in time, and they admit highly unphysical "runaway" solutions. During the past century, there also has been much discussion and debate about the interpretation of these equations of motion and the conditions that can/should be imposed to eliminate the runaway behavior. We argue that the above difficulties stem from that fact that the usual notion of a point charge is mathematically ill defined. However, a mathematically rigorous notion of a point charge arises in a perturbative description of a body if one considers a limit wherein not only the size of a body but its charge and mass go to zero in an asymptotically self-similar manner. We show how the Abraham-Lorentz-Dirac self-force then arises in a perturbative description of the body's motion, but does not give rise to runaway behavior. As a biproduct of this work, we also rigorously derive dipole forces and resolve some paradoxes of elementary physics, such as how a magnetic dipole placed in a non-uniform magnetic field can gain kinetic energy despite the fact that the magnetic field can "do no work" on the body.

Gas accretion onto black holes is thought to power some of the most energetic astrophysical phenomena observed. Black hole accretion disks are efficient engines for converting binding energy into light, and for launching relativistic unbound flows (jets) such as in gamma ray bursts, microquasars and radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGN). Some systems individually exhibit a wide variety of spectral and bolometric states while others remain remarkably predictable. As their brightest emission usually emanates near the black hole's event horizon, they serve as excellent environments for exploring different theories of gravity or for constraining the black hole's geometry. In this talk I will explain how investigators use modern general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic computer simulations to understand accretion observations and probe the strong-field regime of gravity. In particular, I will focus on three topics. First, I will describe how dynamical models of the accretion flow around Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, can help us predict what we will see when observations at the sub-horizon scale are made soon for the first time. Second, I will explain recent developments in simulating cooled thin disks and how their results may affect estimates of black hole spin from the disks' thermal spectra. Last, I will describe how temporal variability analysis of our dynamical simulations can offer insight into the common behavior seen in high-energy emission from black holes with masses of 10 solar masses to a billion solar masses.

Galaxy mergers, which are a natural consequence of hierarchical assembly of galaxies, are expected to produce binary black holes, which subsequently merge. The detection and analysis of gravitational waves from these sources is the major aim of the next generation gravitational wave detector: LISA, the Laser Interferometric Space Antenna. These gravitational waves encode a tremendous amount of information, but to make the connection with astrophysics and cosmology, it is necessary to identify the galaxies hosting these mergers via the associated electromagnetic counterpart to these mergers. I will describe these mergers events and discuss the various regimes where potential electromagnetic counterparts can be found. I will also describe some recent work, which holds much promise for the prompt identification of these mergers -- an electromagnetic precursor from tidal forcing.

Binary neutron stars are among the most important sources of gravitational waves which are expected to be detected by the current or next generation of gravitational wave detectors, such as LIGO and Virgo, and they are also thought to be at the origin of very important astrophysical phenomena, such as short gamma-ray bursts. In order to describe the dynamics of these events one needs to solve the full set of general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics equations through the use of parallel numerical codes. I will report on some recent results obtained with the use of the fully general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic code Whisky in simulating binary neutron stars which inspiral and merge forming an hypermassive neutron star which eventually collapses to form a black hole surrounded by a torus. I will in particular describe how mass, equation of state and magnetic fields can affect the dynamics and consequently the gravitational waves emitted by these systems and discuss about their possible connection with the formation of short gamma ray bursts.

Einstein’s general theory of relativity is the standard theory of gravity, especially where the modern needs of astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology and fundamental physics are concerned. As such, this theory is used for many practical purposes involving spacecraft navigation, geodesy, time transfer and etc. Series of recent experiments have successfully tested general relativity to a remarkable precision. Various experimental techniques were used to test relativistic gravity in the solar system namely spacecraft Doppler tracking, planetary ranging, lunar laser ranging, dedicated gravity experiments in space and many ground-based efforts. We will discuss the recent progress in the tests of relativistic gravity and motivation for the new generation of high-accuracy gravitational experiments in space. We also discuss the advances in our understanding of fundamental physics that are anticipated in the near future and evaluate the discovery potential of the recently proposed solar system gravitational experiments.