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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

On the holographic dual of a symmetry operator at finite temperature

Topological symmetry operators of holographic large 𝑁 CFT 𝐷 ’s are dual to dynamical branes in the gravity dual AdS 𝐷+1 . We use this correspondence to establish a dictionary between thermal expectation values of symmetry operators in the Euclidean CFT 𝐷 and the evaluation of gravitational saddles in the presence of a dynamical brane. Expectation values of 0-form symmetry operators in the CFT 𝐷 are then related to branes wrapped on volume minimizing cycles in the bulk, i.e., the Euclidean continuation of a black hole horizon. We illustrate with some representative examples, including gravity in AdS 3 , duality/triality defects in four-dimensional 𝒩 = 4 super Yang-Mills theory, and the dual of R-symmetry operators probing five-dimensional Bogomol’nyi–Prasad–Sommerfield black holes.

Anomalies↗
DOE OSTI2022

Probing plasma physics with spectral index maps of accreting black holes on event horizon scales

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration has produced the first resolved images of the supermassive black holes at the centre of our galaxy and at the centre of the elliptical galaxy M87. As both technology and analysis pipelines improve, it will soon become possible to produce spectral index maps of black hole accretion flows on event horizon scales. Here, in this work, we predict spectral index maps of both M87* and Sgr A* by applying the general relativistic radiative transfer (GRRT) code IPOLE to a suite of general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations. We analytically show that the spectral index increases with increasing magnetic field strength, electron temperature, and optical depth. Consequently, spectral index maps grow more negative with increasing radius in almost all models, since all of these quantities tend to be maximized near the event horizon. Additionally, photon ring geodesics exhibit more positive spectral indices, since they sample the innermost regions of the accretion flow with the most extreme plasma conditions. Spectral index maps are sensitive to highly uncertain plasma heating prescriptions (the electron temperature and distribution function). However, if our understanding of these aspects of plasma physics can be tightened, even the spatially unresolved spectral index around 230 GHz can be used to discriminate between models. In particular, Standard and Normal Evolution (SANE) flows tend to exhibit more negative spectral indices than Magnetically Arrested Disc (MAD) flows due to differences in the characteristic magnetic field strength and temperature of emitting plasma.

(magnetohydrodynamics) MHD↗
DOE OSTI2025

Space cannot stretch too fast

Here, in this paper, we argue that black holes microstates leave an imprint on the gravitational vacuum through their virtual fluctuations. This imprint yields a power law fall off — rather than an exponential fall off — for the entanglement of planck scale fluctuations at different points. These entanglements generate an extra energy when space stretches too fast, since causality prevents a relaxation of these entanglements to their vacuum values. We obtain semiclassical dynamics for slow processes like star formation, but a radical departure from semiclassicality when a black hole horizon forms even though curvatures remain low everywhere. This resolution of the information puzzle also implies an extra energy source at the scale of the cosmological horizon, which may explain the mysteries of dark energy and the Hubble tension.

black holes↗
DOE OSTI2022

Phase transitions of correlations in black hole geometries

We study the holographic realization of optimized correlation measures—measures of quantum correlation that generalize elementary entropic formulas—in two-dimensional thermal states dual to spacetimes with a black hole horizon. We consider the symmetric bipartite optimized correlation measures: the entanglement of purification, Q-correlation, R-correlation, and squashed entanglement, as well as the mutual information, a nonoptimized correlation measure, and identify the bulk surface configurations realizing their geometric duals over the parameter space of boundary region sizes and the black hole radius. This parameter space is divided into phases associated with given topologies for these bulk surface configurations, and first-order phase transitions occur as a new topology of bulk surfaces becomes preferred. The distinct phases can be associated with different degrees of correlation between the boundary regions and the thermal environment. The Q-correlation has the richest behavior, with a structure of nested optimizations leading to two topologically distinct bulk surface configurations being equally valid as geometric duals at generic points in the phase diagram.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Encoding beyond cosmological horizons in de Sitter JT gravity

Black hole event horizons and cosmological event horizons share many properties, making it natural to ask whether our recent advances in understanding black holes generalize to cosmology. To this end, we discuss a paradox that occurs if observers can access what lies beyond their cosmological horizon in the same way that they can access what lies beyond a black hole horizon. In particular, distinct observers with distinct horizons may encode the same portion of spacetime, violating the no-cloning theorem of quantum mechanics. This paradox is due precisely to the observer-dependence of the cosmological horizon — the sharpest difference from a black hole horizon — although we will argue that the gravity path integral avoids the paradox in controlled examples.

2D gravity↗
DOE OSTI2022

Minidisk Accretion onto Spinning Black Hole Binaries: Quasi-periodicities and Outflows

We perform a full 3D general relativistic magnetohydrodynamical (GRMHD) simulation of an equal-mass, spinning, binary black hole approaching merger, surrounded by a circumbinary disk and with a minidisk around each black hole. For this purpose, we evolve the ideal GRMHD equations on top of an approximated spacetime for the binary that is valid in every position of space, including the black hole horizons, during the inspiral regime. We use relaxed initial data for the circumbinary disk from a previous long-term simulation, where the accretion is dominated by a m = 1 overdensity called the lump. We compare our new spinning simulation with a previous non-spinning run, studying how spin influences the minidisk properties. We analyze the accretion from the inner edge of the lump to the black hole, focusing on the angular momentum budget of the fluid around the minidisks. We find that minidisks in the spinning case have more mass over a cycle than the non-spinning case. However, in both cases we find that most of the mass received by the black holes is delivered by the direct plunging of material from the lump. We also analyze the morphology and variability of the electromagnetic fluxes, and we find they share the same periodicities of the accretion rate. In the spinning case, we find that the outflows are stronger than the non-spinning case. Our results will be useful to understand and produce realistic synthetic light curves and spectra, which can be used in future observations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS2022

Mini-disk accretion onto spinning black hole binaries: quasi-periodicities and outflows

We perform a full 3D general relativistic magnetohydrodynamical (GRMHD) simulation of an equal-mass, spinning, binary black hole approaching merger, surrounded by a circumbinary disk and with mini-disks around each black hole. For this purpose, we evolve the ideal GRMHD equations on top of an approximated spacetime for the binary that is valid in every position of space, including the black hole horizons, during the inspiral regime. We use relaxed initial data for the circumbinary disk from a previous long-term simulation, where the accretion is dominated by an m = 1 overdensity called the lump. We compare our new spinning simulation with a previous non-spinning run, studying how spin influences the mini-disk properties. We analyze the accretion from the inner edge of the lump to the black hole, focusing on the angular momentum budget of the fluid around the mini-disks. We find that mini-disks in the spinning case have more mass over a cycle than the non-spinning case. However, in both cases we find most of the mass received by the black holes is delivered by direct plunging of material from the lump. We also analyze the morphology and variability of the electromagnetic fluxes and we find they share the same periodicities of the accretion rate. In the spinning case, we find that the outflows are stronger than the non-spinning case. Our results will be useful to understand and produce realistic synthetic light curves and spectra, which can be used in future observations.

Astrophysics↗
DOE OSTI2025

The gravitational path integral from an observer’s point of view

One of the fundamental problems in quantum gravity is to describe the experience of a gravitating observer in generic spacetimes. In this paper, we develop a framework for describing non-perturbative physics relative to an observer using the gravitational path integral. We apply our proposal to an observer that lives in a closed universe and one that falls behind a black hole horizon. We find that the Hilbert space that describes the experience of the observer is much larger than the Hilbert space in the absence of an observer. In the case of closed universes, the Hilbert space is not one-dimensional, as calculations in the absence of the observer suggest. Rather, its dimension scales exponentially with ${G}_{N}^{-1}$. Similarly, from an observer’s perspective, the dimension of the Hilbert space in a two-sided black hole is increased. We compute various observables probing the experience of a gravitating observer in this Hilbert space. We find that an observer experiences non-trivial physics in the closed universe in contrast to what it would see in a one-dimensional Hilbert space. In the two-sided black hole setting, our proposal implies that non-perturbative corrections to effective field theory for an infalling observer are suppressed until times exponential in the black hole entropy, resolving a recently-raised puzzle in black hole physics. While the framework that we develop is exemplified in the toy-model of JT gravity, most of our analysis can be extended to higher dimensions and, in particular, to generic spacetimes not admitting a conventional holographic description, such as cosmological universes or black hole interiors.

2D gravity↗
DOE OSTI2023

Scattering in black hole backgrounds and higher-spin amplitudes. Part II

We continue to investigate correspondences between, on the one hand, scattering amplitudes for massive higher-spin particles and gravitons in appropriate quantum-to-classical limits, and on the other hand, classical gravitational interactions of spinning black holes according to general relativity. We first construct an ansatz for a gravitational Compton amplitude, at tree level, constrained only by locality, crossing symmetry, unitarity and consistency with the linearized-Kerr 3-point amplitude, to all orders in the black hole’s spin. We then explore the extent to which a unique classical Compton amplitude can be identified by comparing with the results of the classical process of scattering long-wavelength gravitational waves off an exact Kerr black hole, determined by appropriate solutions of the Teukolsky equation. Up to fourth order in spin, we find complete agreement with a previously conjectured exponential form of the tree-level Compton amplitude. At higher orders, we extract tree-level contributions from the Teukolsky amplitude by an analytic continuation from a physical (a/GM < 1) to a particle-like (a/GM > 1) regime. Up to the sixth order in spin, we identify a unique conservative part of the amplitude which is insensitive both to the choice of boundary conditions at the black hole horizon and to branch choices in the analytic continuation. The remainder of the amplitude is determined modulo an overall sign from a branch choice, with the sign flipping under exchanging purely ingoing and purely outgoing boundary conditions at the horizon. Along the way, we make contact with novel applications of massive spinor-helicity variables pertaining to their relation to EFT operators and (spinning) partial amplitudes.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Black hole scattering and partition functions

When computing the ideal gas thermal canonical partition function for a scalar outside a black hole horizon, one encounters the divergent single-particle density of states (DOS) due to the continuous nature of the normal mode spectrum. Recasting the Lorentzian field equation into an effective 1D scattering problem, we argue that the scattering phases encode non-trivial information about the DOS and can be extracted by “renormalizing” the DOS with respect to a reference. This defines a renormalized free energy up to an arbitrary additive constant. Interestingly, we discover that the 1-loop Euclidean path integral, as computed by the Denef-Hartnoll-Sachdev formula, fixes the reference free energy to be that on a Rindler-like region, and the renormalized DOS captures the quasinormal modes for the scalar. We support these claims with the examples of scalars on static BTZ, Nariai black holes and the de Sitter static patch. For black holes in asymptotically flat space, the renormalized DOS is captured by the phase of the transmission coefficient whose magnitude squared is the greybody factor. We comment on possible connections with recent works from an algebraic point of view.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Relativistic gas accretion onto supermassive black hole binaries from inspiral through merger

Accreting supermassive black hole binaries are powerful multimessenger sources emitting both gravitational and electromagnetic (EM) radiation. Understanding the accretion dynamics of these systems and predicting their distinctive EM signals is crucial to informing and guiding upcoming efforts aimed at detecting gravitational waves produced by these binaries. To this end, accurate numerical modeling is required to describe both the spacetime and the magnetized gas around the black holes. In this paper, we present two key advances in this field of research. First, we have developed a novel 3D general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (GRMHD) framework that combines multiple numerical codes to simulate the inspiral and merger of supermassive black hole binaries starting from realistic initial data and running all the way through merger. Throughout the evolution, we adopt a simple but functional prescription to account for gas cooling through photon emission. Next, we have applied our new computational method to follow the time evolution of a circular, equal-mass, nonspinning black hole binary for ∼200 orbits, starting from a separation of 20⁢𝑟 𝑔 and reaching the postmerger evolutionary stage of the system. We have shown how mass continues to flow toward the binary even after the binary “decouples” from its surrounding disk, but the accretion rate onto the black holes diminishes. We have identified how the minidisks orbiting each black hole are slowly drained and eventually dissolve as the binary compresses. We confirm previous findings that the system’s luminosity decreases by a factor of a few during inspiral; however, we observe an abrupt increase by ∼50% in this quantity at the time of merger, likely accompanied by an equally abrupt change in spectrum. Lastly, we have demonstrated that during the inspiral, fluid ram pressure regulates the fraction of the magnetic flux transported to the binary that attaches to the black holes’ horizons.

Accretion disk & black-hole plasma↗
DOE OSTI2023

Millimeter observational signatures of flares in magnetically arrested black hole accretion models

In general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations, accreted magnetic flux on the black hole horizon episodically decays, during which magnetic reconnection heats up the plasma near the horizon, potentially powering high-energy flares like those observed in M87* and Sgr A*. We study the mm observational counterparts of such flaring episodes in very high resolution GRMHD simulations. The change in 230 GHz flux during the expected high energy flares depends primarily on the efficiency of accelerating γ ≳ 100 (T e ≳ 10 11 K) electrons. For models in which the electrons are heated to T e ∼ 10 11 K during flares, the hot plasma produced by reconnection significantly enhances 230 GHz emission and increases the size of the 230 GHz image. By contrast, for models in which the electrons are heated to higher temperatures (which we argue are better motivated), the reconnection-heated plasma is too hot to produce significant 230 GHz synchrotron emission, and the 230 GHz flux decreases during high energy flares. We do not find a significant change in the mm polarization during flares as long as the emission is Faraday thin. We also present expectations for the ring-shaped image as observed by the Event Horizon Telescope during flares, as well as multiwavelength synchrotron spectra. Our results highlight several limitations of standard post-processing prescriptions for the electron temperature in GRMHD simulations. We also discuss the implications of our results for current and future observations of flares in Sgr A*, M87*, and related systems. Appendices contain detailed convergence studies with respect to resolution and plasma magnetization.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Covariant phase space with boundaries

The covariant phase space method of Iyer, Lee, Wald, and Zoupas gives an elegant way to understand the Hamiltonian dynamics of Lagrangian field theories without breaking covariance. The original literature however does not systematically treat total derivatives and boundary terms, which has led to some confusion about how exactly to apply the formalism in the presence of boundaries. In particular the original construction of the canonical Hamiltonian relies on the assumed existence of a certain boundary quantity “B”, whose physical interpretation has not been clear. We here give an algorithmic procedure for applying the covariant phase space formalism to field theories with spatial boundaries, from which the term in the Hamiltonian involving B emerges naturally. Our procedure also produces an additional boundary term, which was not present in the original literature and which so far has only appeared implicitly in specific examples, and which is already nonvanishing even in general relativity with sufficiently permissive boundary conditions. The only requirement we impose is that at solutions of the equations of motion the action is stationary modulo future/past boundary terms under arbitrary variations obeying the spatial boundary conditions; from this the symplectic structure and the Hamiltonian for any diffeomorphism that preserves the theory are unambiguously constructed. We show in examples that the Hamiltonian so constructed agrees with previous results. We also show that the Poisson bracket on covariant phase space directly coincides with the Peierls bracket, without any need for non-covariant intermediate steps, and we discuss possible implications for the entropy of dynamical black hole horizons.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Classical double copy of nonsingular black holes

We apply the classical double copy procedure to a class of regular, non-singular black hole solutions. We give several examples, paying particular attention to a string-theory-corrected black hole solution emerging from T-duality. Non-perturbative stringy corrections introduce an ultraviolet (UV) zero-point length cutoff which results in non-singular black hole spacetimes. Apart from the UV regulator, the solution is equivalent to the Bardeen black hole spacetime. We extend this solution to include an asymptotic de Sitter background. All Yang-Mills field theory quantities associated with the double copy are well-behaved and finite for all values of parameters. Furthermore, we present a thorough analysis of the black hole horizon structure, additionally uncovering a simple yet new connection between horizons on the gravity side and electric fields on the gauge theory side of the double copy.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Black hole entropy from soft hair

We start by looking at why we believe that black holes have entropy. According to Boltzmann, the entropy is a measure of the number of microstates of a system. We suggest here that the entropy arises from a holographic conformal field theory on the black hole horizon. Finally, we discuss some of the implications for the information paradox.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗
NASA NTRS1985

Some evidence for large gravitational redshift in Seyfert galaxy NGC 4151

The photon spectra of two Seyfert galaxies NGC 4151 and MCG 8-11-11 are good experimentally established in the X-ray and gamma range. The annihilation of the high temperature positrons with cold electrons is proposed as the possible mechanism of photon production in the Seyfert galaxy NGC 4151. The photon spectrum of NGC 4151 with its observed features from the soft X to the gamma ray range is described by annihilation of positrons and electrons at temperatures 3 x 10 to the 12th power K and 10 to the 8th power K respectively. The photon spectra from annihilation of unthermalized plasma with above parameters should be shifted to the lower energy by redshift z = 100. In that case the source of photons should be placed closely to the black hole horizon (r approximately equal to 1.0001 r sub g.

Tkaczyk, W.↗
NASA NTRS1987

A simplified derivation of stimulated emission by black holes

A black hole, when acting as a scatterer for quanta in a single mode of a massless scalar field, is known to convert any ingoing Gibbs state of that mode into an outgoing Gibbs state (with some other mean particle number). The paper presents a simple derivation for this property which may help to clarify what relation, if any, it bears to the microscopic structure of the black hole horizon.

Sorkin, Rafael D.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Accretion Disks Around Binary Black Holes of Unequal Mass: GRMHD Simulations Near Decoupling

We report on simulations in general relativity of magnetized disks onto black hole binaries. We vary the binary mass ratio from 1:1 to 1:10 and evolve the systems when they orbit near the binary disk decoupling radius. We compare (surface) density profiles, accretion rates (relative to a single, non-spinning black hole), variability, effective alpha-stress levels and luminosities as functions of the mass ratio. We treat the disks in two limiting regimes: rapid radiative cooling and no radiative cooling. The magnetic field lines clearly reveal jets emerging from both black hole horizons and merging into one common jet at large distances. The magnetic fields give rise to much stronger shock heating than the pure hydrodynamic flows, completely alter the disk structure, and boost accretion rates and luminosities. Accretion streams near the horizons are among the densest structures; in fact, the 1:10 no-cooling evolution results in a refilling of the cavity. The typical effective temperature in the bulk of the disk is approx. 10(exp5) (M / 10(exp 8)M solar mass (exp -1/4(L/L(sub edd) (exp 1/4K) yielding characteristic thermal frequencies approx. 10 (exp 15) (M /10(exp 8)M solar mass) (exp -1/4(L/L (sub edd) (1+z) (exp -1)Hz. These systems are thus promising targets for many extragalactic optical surveys, such as LSST, WFIRST, and PanSTARRS.

Supermassive↗