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We study the role of the equilibrium equation in bootstrapped Newtonian gravity (BNG) by including terms inspired by the post-Newtonian expansion of the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkov (TOV) equation. We then compare (approximate) BNG solutions for homogenous stars with their Newtonian and General Relativistic exact solutions. Regardless of the additional terms from the conservation equation, BNG stars do not exhibit a Buchdahl limit. However, specific extra terms added to this equation can cause the pressure to become negative inside stars with compactness smaller than the critical values for BNG black hole formation., Comment: 20 pages, 13 figures

Using the effective field theory of quantum gravity at second order in curvature, we calculate quantum corrections to the metric of gravastars and the closely related dark energy stars. We find that the quantum corrections in the exterior region depend on the equation of state of the gravastar, thus providing an example of quantum gravitational hair. We continue by calculating the induced quantum corrections to the photon sphere and the bending of light rays in the weak field regime. These corrections, albeit Planck scale suppressed, allow in principle to distinguish these objects from black holes observationally., Comment: 15 pages

The formalism of the horizon quantum mechanics is applied to electrically neutral and spherically symmetric black hole geometries emerging from coherent quantum states of gravity to compute the probability that the matter source is inside the horizon. We find that quantum corrections to the classical horizon radius become significant if the matter core has a size comparable to the Compton length of the constituents and the system is indeed a black hole with probability very close to one unless the core radius is close to the (classical) gravitational radius., Comment: LaTeXT, 16 pages, 3 figures

We show how to reliably calculate quantum gravitational corrections to cosmological models using the unique effective action formalism for quantum gravity. Our calculations are model independent and apply to any ultra-violet complete theory of quantum gravity that admit general relativity as a low energy theory. We show that it is important to consider the full effective action to obtain renormalization group invariant solutions. We investigate the validity range of our techniques within simple cosmological models., Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures

We study cosmological models based on the interior of the revisited Schwarzschild black hole recently reported in [Phys.~Rev.~D{\bf 109} (2024) 104032]. We find that these solutions describe a non-trivial Kantowski-Sachs universe, for which we provide an explicit analytical example with all the details and describe some general features of the singularity., Comment: 7 pages

We make a conceptual overview of a particular approach to the initial-value problem in canonical gauge theories. We stress how the first-class phase-space constraints may be relaxed if we interpret them as fixing the values of new degrees of freedom. This idea goes back to Fock and Stueckelberg, leading to restrictions of the gauge symmetry of a theory, and it corresponds, in certain cases, to promoting constants of Nature to physical fields. Recently, different versions of this formulation have gained considerable attention in the literature, with several independent iterations, particularly in classical and quantum descriptions of gravity, cosmology, and electromagnetism. In particular, in the case of canonical quantum gravity, the Fock--Stueckelberg approach is relevant to the so-called problem of time. Our overview recalls and generalizes the work of Fock and Stueckelberg and its physical interpretation with the aim of conceptually unifying the different iterations of the idea that appear in the literature and of motivating further research., Comment: v2: conceptual clarifications and brief appendix added; improvements to the text; results unchanged; references updated

We study the quantum hair associated with coherent states describing slowly rotating black holes and show how it can be naturally related with the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy and with 1-loop quantum corrections of the metric for the (effectively) non-rotating case. We also estimate corrections induced by such quantum hair to the temperature of the Hawking radiation through the tunnelling method., Comment: Plain LaTeX, 19 pages, clarifications added

We present a simple analytical model for studying the collapse of an ultracompact stellar object (regular black hole mimicker with infinite redshift surface) to form a (integrable) black hole, in the framework of General Relativity. Both initial and final configurations have the same ADM mass, so that the transition represents an internal redistribution of matter without emission of energy. The model, despite being quite idealized, can be viewed as a good starting point to investigate near-horizon quantum physics, Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

We study the effects of a spatially homogenous magnetic field in Bianchi-I cosmological models. The cases of a pure magnetic field and two models with additional dust and a massless scalar field (stiff matter) are also considered. At the beginning of the cosmological evolution,i.e., in the neighborhood of the singularity, the universe is described by one of Kasner's solutions, and asymptotically by another Kasner solution when the volume of the universe tends to infinity. The transition law between these two Kasner regimes is established, and shown to coincide with the analogous law for the empty Bianchi-II universe. The universe filled with dust and a magnetic field undergoes the process of isotropization, while the presence of a massless scalar field induces a modification of the relations between Kasner indices in the two asymptotic regimes. In all of these cases, we analyze the approach to the singularity in some detail and comment on the issue of the possible singularity crossing., Comment: 13 pages, final version, to be published in Physical Reveiw D

We consider quantum gravitational corrections to the Oppenheimer-Snyder metric describing time-dependent dust ball collapse. The interior metric also describes Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker cosmology and our results are interpreted in that context. The exterior corrections are an example of quantum hair, and are shown to persist throughout the collapse. Our results show the quantum hair survives throughout the horizon formation and that the internal state of the resulting black hole is accessible to outside observers., Comment: 13 pages

We describe the ground state for a gravitationally collapsed ball of dust as the direct product of wavefunctions for dust particles distributed over an arbitrary number of nested layers. This allows us to estimate the expectation value of the global radius as well as the effective energy density and pressures for the dust core of quantum black holes. In particular, the size of the quantum core does not depend on the number of layers and the mass function is shown to grow linearly with the areal radius up to the outermost layer., Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures. Version to appear in PLB

Static and stationary regular black holes are examined under a minimal set of requirements consisting of (i) the existence of a well defined event horizon and (ii) the weak energy condition for matter sourcing the geometry. We perform our analysis by means of the gravitational decoupling approach and find hairy solutions free of curvature singularities. We identify the matter source producing a deformation of the Minkowski vacuum such that the maximum deformation is the Schwarzschild solution for the static case, and the Kerr metric for the stationary case., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, final version to appear in Phys.Lett.B

The idea that gravity can act as a regulator of ultraviolet divergences is almost a century old and has inspired several approaches to quantum gravity. In fact, a minimum Planckian length can be shown to emerge from the nonlinear dynamics of gravity in the effective field theory approach to gravitational scatterings at Planckian energies. A simple quantum description of the gravitational collapse of a ball of dust supports the conclusion that such a length scale is indeed dynamical and matter inside black holes forms extended cores of macroscopic size. The geometry of these quantum black holes can be described by coherent states which cannot contain modes of arbitrarily short wavelength, compatibly with a matter core of finite size. Therefore, the classical central singularity is not realised, yet the expected general relativistic behaviour can be recovered in the weak-field region outside the horizon with good approximation. Deviations from classical general relativistic solutions are still present and form quantum hair which modify the thermodynamical description of black holes. These quantum black holes also avoid the presence of inner (Cauchy) horizons, since the effective energy density and pressures are integrable, as required by quantum physics, and not as regular as in classical physics., Comment: Invited chapter for the edited book New Frontiers in Gravitational Collapse and Spacetime Singularities (Eds. P. Joshi and D. Malafarina, Springer Singapore, expected in 2023)

We consider black holes generically sourced by quantum matter described by regular wavefunctions. This allows for integrable effective energy densities and the removal of Cauchy horizons in spherically symmetric configurations. Moreover, we identify the ultrarigid rotation of the Kerr spacetime as causing the existence of an inner horizon in rotating systems, and describe general properties for quantum matter cores at the centre of rotating black holes with integrable singularities and no Cauchy horizon., Comment: LaTeX, 12 pages, 1 figure, final version to appear in JHEP

We study the effect of rotation on the spectrum of bound states for dust cores that source (quantum) black holes found in Eur. Phys. J. C 82 (2022) 10. The dust ball is assumed to spin rigidly with sufficiently slow angular velocity that perturbation theory can be applied. Like the total mass, the total angular momentum is shown to be quantised in Planck units, hence so is the horizon area. For sufficiently small fraction of mass in the outermost layer, the model admits ground states which can spin fast enough within the perturbative regime so as to describe regular rotating objects rather than black holes., Comment: 9 pages, 6 graphs in 2 figures

The notions of minimum geometrical length and minimum length scale are discussed with reference to correlation functions obtained from in-in and in-out amplitudes in quantum field theory. Whereas the in-in propagator for metric perturbations does not admit the former, the in-out Feynman propagator shows the emergence of the latter. A connection between the Feynman propagator of quantum field theories of gravity and the deformation parameter $\delta_0$ of the generalised uncertainty principle (GUP) is then exhibited, which allows to determine an exact expression for $\delta_0$ in terms of the residues of the causal propagator. A correspondence between the non-renormalisability of (some) theories (of gravity) and the existence of a minimum length scale is then conjectured to support the idea that non-renormalisable theories are self-complete and finite. The role played by the sign of the deformation parameter is further discussed by considering an implementation of the GUP on the lattice., Comment: LaTeX, 12 pages, no figures, final version to appear in PLB

It is generally believed that a full-fledged theory of quantum gravity should exhibit background independence and diffeomorphism invariance. In its most general form, the latter comprises field redefinitions, which are diffeomorphisms in configuration space. We show that any path-integral approach to quantum gravity leads to a tension between these properties, such that they cannot hold simultaneously., Comment: matches version accepted for publication

We study binary mergers in bootstrapped Newtonian gravity, where higher-order couplings are added to the non-relativistic Lagrangian for the Newtonian potential. In this theory, the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner (ADM) mass differs from both the proper mass of Newtonian gravity and the proper mass of general relativity, which affects the interpretation of astrophysical and cosmological events. The aforementioned difference particularly provides important phenomenological constraints for the mass of the emitted matter and the compactness of the final object after the merger. The interpretation of the GW150914 signal in this theory also shows that LIGO's findings do not violate the mass gap, contrary to usual claims. We indeed find that typical stellar black hole masses can fit LIGO's data for a considerable range of compactness values. We calculate the black hole entropy in this context, which leads to a generalised black hole area law. Non-linear effects are found to effectively change only the gravitational strength via the renormalization of Newton's constant in this case., Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Phys.Lett.B

We study the possible existence of a Newtonian regime of gravity in $1+1$ dimensions, considering metrics in both the Kerr-Schild and conformal forms. In the former case, the metric gives the exact solution of the Poisson equation in flat space, but the weak-field limit of the solutions and the non-relativistic regime of geodesic motion are not trivial. We show that using harmonic coordinates, the metric is conformally flat and a weak-field expansion is straightforward. An analysis of the non-relativistic regime of geodesic motion remains non-trivial and the weak-field potential only satisfies the flat space Poisson equation approximately., Comment: Added references, expanded discussions

We consider compact objects in a classical and non-relativistic generalisation of Newtonian gravity, dubbed bootstrapped Newtonian theory, which includes higher-order derivative interaction terms of the kind generically present in the strong-field regime of gravity. By means of a field redefinition, the original bootstrapped Newtonian action is written in a canonical Newtonian form with non-linear source terms. Exact analytic solutions remain unattainable, but we show that perturbative solutions of the canonical theory can be efficiently used to derive approximate descriptions of compact objects. In particular, using the canonical potential, we can more directly and generally show that the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner mass differs from the (Newtonian) proper mass due to the non-linear couplings in the theory. A few examples of sources with different density profiles are explicitly reanalysed in this framework., Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures

The Hawking-Penrose theorem is not covariant under field redefinitions. Should the invariance under such transformations be a true principle in Nature, spacetime singularities become dubious objects. We here review the concept of covariant singularities, that is, singularities that are invariant under both spacetime diffeomorphisms and field redefinitions., Comment: Accepted for publication in Mod. Phys. Lett. A