Related papers: Star tracks in the ghost condensate
Peculiar velocities change the expansion rate of any observer moving relative to the smooth Hubble flow. As a result, observers in a galaxy like our Milky Way can experience accelerated expansion within a globally decelerating universe,…
According to this principle, the relativistic changes occurring to the bodies, after velocity changes, cannot be detected by observers moving with them because bodies and stationary radiations change in identical proportion after identical…
I study seven novel observational tests of general relativity. First, I show that a gravitational wave pulse from a major merger of massive black holes at the Galactic center induces a permanent increase in the Earth-Moon separation.…
We investigate the effects, stability, and nonlinear dynamics of ghost scalar matter modeled as a field with a negative kinetic term confined within the cores of neutron stars. To this end, we analyze static configurations of the coupled…
We show that cosmic acceleration can arise due to very tiny corrections to the usual gravitational action of General Relativity of the form $R^n$, with $n<0$. This eliminates the need for dark energy, though it does not address the…
Theories that attempt to explain cosmic acceleration by modifying gravity typically introduces a long-range scalar force that needs to be screened on small scales. One common screening mechanism is the chameleon, where the scalar force is…
Studies of the HI in galaxies have clearly shown that subtle details of the HI distribution and kinematics often harbour key information for understanding the structure and evolution of galaxies. Evidence for the accretion of material has…
A refined version of a recently introduced method for analysing the dynamics of an inhomogeneous irrotational dust universe is presented. A fully non-perturbative numerical computation of the time dependence of volume in this framework…
In this thesis we are interested in the problem of dark energy in cosmology. In particular, we consider the possibility that this effect is due to an infrared non-local modification of the theory of General Relativity. Inspired by massive…
Without observational or theoretical modifications, Newtonian and general relativity seem to be unable to explain gravitational behavior of large structure of the universe. The assumption of dark matter solves this problem without modifying…
Gravitational radiation that propagates through an inhomogeneous mass distribution is subject to random gravitational lensing, or scattering, causing variations in the wave amplitude and temporal smearing of the signal. A statistical theory…
It is shown how, within the framework of general relativity and without the introduction of wormholes, it is possible to modify a spacetime in a way that allows a spaceship to travel with an arbitrarily large speed. By a purely local…
We analyze the behavior of the scalar field as dark energy of the Universe in a static world of galaxies and clusters of galaxies. We find the analytical solutions of evolution equations of the density and velocity perturbations of dark…
The effect of capture of a cosmic object by the central gravitational field of a galaxy cluster is described in the expanding Universe. The cosmic evolution can be the origin of the capture explaining formation of galaxies and their…
Spontaneous scalarization is a mechanism that allows a scalar field to go undetected in weak gravity environments and yet develop a nontrivial configuration in strongly gravitating systems. At the perturbative level it manifests as a…
We study the propagation of super-horizon cosmological perturbations in a non-singular bounce spacetime. The model we consider combines a ghost condensate with a Galileon term in order to induce a ghost-free bounce. Our calculation is…
From the equivalence principle, one gets the strength of the gravitational effect of a mass $M$ on the metric at position r from it. It is proportional to the dimensionless parameter $\beta^2 = 2GM/rc^2$, which normally is $<< 1$. Here $G$…
From an observational perspective cosmology is today in excellent shape - advances in instrumentation and data processing have enabled us to study the universe in detail back to when the first galaxies formed, map the fluctuations in the…
The accelerating expansion of the Universe at recent epochs has called into question the validity of general relativity on cosmological scales. One probe of gravity is a comparison of expansion history of the Universe with the history of…
Apparent variability of the longitudinal magnetic fields in most stars is caused by rotation, which quantitavely changes projection of the magnetic field configuration on the line of sight. This is a purely geometrical effect and is not…