Related papers: A Brief Comment on Instanton-like Singularities an…
The issue of the equivalence between Jordan and Einstein conformal frames in scalar-tensor gravity is revisited, with emphasis on implementing running units in the latter. The lack of affine parametrization for timelike worldlines and the…
Isolated horizon conditions specialized to spherical symmetry can be imposed directly at the quantum level. This answers several questions concerning horizon degrees of freedom, which are seen to be related to orientation, and its…
Cosmic horizons arise in general relativity in the context of black holes and in certain cosmologies. Classically, regions beyond a horizon are inaccessible to causal observers. However, quantum mechanical correlations may exist across…
We find constrained instantons in Einstein gravity with and without a cosmological constant. These configurations are not saddle points of the Einstein-Hilbert action, yet they contribute to non-perturbative processes in quantum gravity. In…
Geometries with horizons offer insights into relationships between general relativity and quantum physics. For static spherically symmetric space-times, the event horizon is coincident with a coordinate anomaly that introduces complications…
We investigate the dynamics of $f(R)$ gravity in Jordan and Einstein frames. First, we perform a phase-space singularities analysis in both frames. We show that, typically, anisotropic singularities are absent in the Einstein frame, whereas…
We consider the cosmological horizons in the expanding universe from the point of view of observer moving with respect to CMB frame. The deformation (non-sphericity) of cosmological horizons is demonstrated. Some principle consequences are…
We consider the fundamental issues which dominate the question about the existence or non-existence of black hole horizons and singularities from both of the theoretical and observational points of view, and discuss some of the ways that…
The concept of a horizon known from general relativity describes the loss of causal connection and can be applied to non-gravitational scenarios such as out-of-equilibrium condensed-matter systems in the laboratory. This analogy facilitates…
The gravitational force harbours a fundamental instability against collapse. In standard General Relativity without Quantum Mechanics, this implies the existence of black holes as natural, stable solutions of Einstein's equations. If one…
To ask a question about a black hole in quantum gravity, one must restrict initial or boundary data to ensure that a black hole is actually present. For two-dimensional dilaton gravity, and probably a much wider class of theories as well,…
In general relativity, a gravitational horizon (more commonly known as the "apparent horizon") is an imaginary surface beyond which all null geodesics recede from the observer. The Universe has an apparent (gravitational) horizon, but…
For models of dilaton-gravity with a possible exponential potential, such as the tensor-scalar sector of IIA supergravity, we show how cosmological solutions correspond to trajectories in a 2D Milne space (parametrized by the dilaton and…
In an attempt to re-establish space-time as an essential frame for formulating quantum gravity - rather than an "emergent" one -, we find that exact invariance under scale transformations is an essential new ingredient for such a theory.…
We investigate the cosmology of a recently proposed deformation of Einstein gravity, emerging from quantum gravity heuristics. The theory is constructed to have de Sitter space as a vacuum solution, and thus to be relevant to the…
The Hamiltonian of any quantum cosmological model must obey some conditions in order to be self-adjoint, or to admit self-adjoint extensions. We will consider in this paper the self-adjoint character of the Hamiltonian resulting from the…
A new solution of the Einstein equations for the point mass immersed in the de Sitter Universe is presented. The properties of the metric are very different from both the Schwarzschild black hole and the de Sitter Universe: it is everywhere…
The Einstein-Hilbert theory of gravity can be rephrased by focusing on local conformal symmetry as an exact, but spontaneously broken symmetry of nature. The conformal component of the metric field is then treated as a dilaton field with…
Isolated horizons model equilibrium states of classical black holes. A detailed quantization, starting from a classical phase space restricted to spherically symmetric horizons, exists in the literature and has since been extended to…
The presence and evolution of apparent horizons in a two-parameter family of spherically symmetric, time-dependent solutions of Brans-Dicke gravity are analyzed. These solutions were introduced to model space- and time-varying gravitational…