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In this short paper we discuss the possibility of testing the nature of astrophysical black holes using the recently observed black hole mergers. We investigate the possibility that a secondary black hole is created in the merger of two astrophysical black holes and discuss potential astrophysical signatures. We point out that black hole mergers are a possible astrophysical mechanism for the creation of quantum black holes with masses close to the Planck mass., Comment: This paper was submitted to a journal on November 27, 2017 and accepted on June 05, 2018

We study the location of marginally trapped surfaces in space-times resulting from an axial deformation of static isotropic systems, and show that the Misner-Sharp mass evaluated on the corresponding undeformed spherically symmetric space provides the correct gravitational radius to locate the spheroidal horizon., Comment: 16 pages in REVTeX format, 1 figure, with streamlined calculation of expansion scalars. Title changed. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1801.05621

We consider a generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) corresponding to a deformation of the fundamental commutator obtained by adding a term quadratic in the momentum. From this GUP, we compute corrections to the Unruh effect and related Unruh temperature, by first following a heuristic derivation, and then a more standard field theoretic calculation. In the limit of small deformations, we recover the thermal character of the Unruh radiation. Corrections to the temperature at first order in the deforming parameter are compared for the two approaches, and found to be in agreement as for the dependence on the cubic power of the acceleration of the reference frame. The dependence of the shifted temperature on the frequency is also pointed out and discussed., Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure

We present a general framework where the effective field theory of single field inflation is extended by the inclusion of operators with mass dimension 3 and 4 in the unitary gauge. These higher dimensional operators introduce quartic and sextic corrections to the dispersion relation. We study the regime of validity of this extended effective field theory of inflation and the effect of these higher dimensional operators on CMB observables associated with scalar perturbations, such as the speed of sound, the amplitude of the power spectrum and the tensor-to-scalar ratio. Tensor perturbations remain instead, unaltered., Comment: new version matches the published version, includes adding few citations and correcting few typos

We investigate the emergent laws of gravity when Dark Energy and the de Sitter space-time are modelled as a critical Bose-Einstein condensate of a large number of soft gravitons $N_{\rm G}$. We argue that this scenario requires the presence of various regimes of gravity in which $N_{\rm G}$ scales in different ways. Moreover, the local gravitational interaction affecting baryonic matter can be naturally described in terms of gravitons pulled out from this Dark Energy condensate (DEC). We then explain the additional component of the acceleration at galactic scales, commonly attributed to dark matter, as the reaction of the DEC to the presence of baryonic matter. This additional dark force is also associated to gravitons pulled out from the DEC and correctly reproduces the MOND acceleration. It also allows for an effective description in terms of General Relativity sourced by an anisotropic fluid. We finally calculate the mass ratio between the contribution of the apparent dark matter and the baryonic matter in a region of size $r$ at galactic scales and show that it is consistent with the $\Lambda$CDM predictions., Comment: 20 pages, no figures

The Horizon Quantum Mechanics is an approach that allows one to analyse the gravitational radius of spherically symmetric systems and compute the probability that a given quantum state is a black hole. We first review the (global) formalism and show how it reproduces a gravitationally inspired GUP relation. This results leads to unacceptably large fluctuations in the horizon size of astrophysical black holes if one insists in describing them as (smeared) central singularities. On the other hand, if they are extended systems, like in the corpuscular models, no such issue arises and one can in fact extend the formalism to include asymptotic mass and angular momentum with the harmonic model of rotating corpuscular black holes. The Horizon Quantum Mechanics then shows that, in simple configurations, the appearance of the inner horizon is suppressed and extremal (macroscopic) geometries seem disfavoured., Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, based on a talk given at the International Lemaitre Workshop "Black holes, gravitational waves and spacetime singularities", Specola Vaticana, May 8-12, 2017

We derive the Hawking spectrum of fermions emitted by a minimally geometric deformed (MGD) black hole. The MGD naturally describes quantum effects on the geometry in the form of a length scale related, for instance, to the existence of extra dimensions. The dynamics of the emitted fermions is described in the context of the generalised uncertainty principle and likewise contains a length scale associated with the quantum nature of space-time. We then show that the emission is practically indistinguishable from the Hawking thermal spectrum for large black hole masses, but the total flux can vanish for small and finite black hole mass. This suggests the possible existence of black hole remnants with a mass determined by the two length scales., Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures

We show that a corpuscular description of gravity can lead to an inflationary scenario similar to Starobinsky's model without requiring the introduction of the inflaton field. All relevant properties are determined by the number of gravitons in the cosmological condensate or, equivalently, by their Compton length. In particular, the relation between the Hubble parameter $H$ and its time derivative $\dot H$ required by CMB observations at the end of inflation, as well as the (minimum) initial value of the slow-roll parameter, are naturally obtained from the Compton size of the condensate., Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, minor typos corrected

We propose an effective anisotropic fluid description for a generic infrared-modified theory of gravity. In our framework, the additional component of the acceleration, commonly attributed to dark matter, is explained as a radial pressure generated by the reaction of the dark energy fluid to the presence of baryonic matter. Using quite general assumptions, and a microscopic description of the fluid in terms of a Bose-Einstein condensate of gravitons, we find the static, spherically symmetric solution for the metric in terms of the Misner-Sharp mass function and the fluid pressure. At galactic scales, we correctly reproduce the leading MOND-like $\log(r)$ and subleading $(1/r)\,\log(r)$ terms in the weak-field expansion of the potential. Our description also predicts a tiny (of order $10^{-6}$ for a typical spiral galaxy) Machian modification of the Newtonian potential at galactic scales, which is controlled by the cosmological acceleration., Comment: 13 pages, no figures. Replaced version: major revisions in the introduction, microscopic derivation of Tully-Fisher relation using Bose-Einstein condensate of gravitons. Some typos corrected

We demonstrate that in some regions of parameter space, modified dispersion relations can lead to highly populated excited states, which we dub as "super-excited" states. In order to prepare such super-excited states, we invoke dispersion relations that have negative slope in an interim sub-horizon phase at high momenta. This behaviour of quantum fluctuations can lead to large corrections relative to the Bunch-Davies power spectrum, which mimics highly excited initial conditions. We identify the Bogolyubov coefficients that can yield these power spectra. In the course of this computation, we also point out the shortcomings of the gluing method for evaluating the power spectrum and the Bogolyubov coefficients. As we discuss, there are other regions of parameter space, where the power spectrum does not get modified. Therefore, modified dispersion relations can also lead to so-called "calm excited states" as well. We conclude by commenting on the possibility of obtaining these modified dispersion relations within the Effective Field Theory of Inflation., Comment: 1+19 pages, 4 figures

We study an effective quantum description of the static gravitational potential for spherically symmetric systems up to the first post-Newtonian order. We start by obtaining a Lagrangian for the gravitational potential coupled to a static matter source from the weak field expansion of the Einstein-Hilbert action. By analysing a few classical solutions of the resulting field equation, we show that our construction leads to the expected post-Newtonian expressions. Next, we show that one can reproduce the classical Newtonian results very accurately by employing a coherent quantum state and modifications to include the first post-Newtonian corrections are considered. Our findings establish a connection between the corpuscular model of black holes and post-Newtonian gravity, and set the stage for further investigations of these quantum models., Comment: 26 pages, 4 figures. Typos corrected, references and clarifications added

The Horizon Quantum Mechanics is an approach that was previously introduced in order to analyse the gravitational radius of spherically symmetric systems and compute the probability that a given quantum state is a black hole. In this work, we first extend the formalism to general space-times with asymptotic (ADM) mass and angular momentum. We then apply the extended Horizon Quantum Mechanics to a harmonic model of rotating corpuscular black holes. We find that simple configurations of this model naturally suppress the appearance of the inner horizon and seem to disfavour extremal (macroscopic) geometries., Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures. Final version to appear in EPJ C

We consider a solution of the effective four-dimensional Einstein equations, obtained from the general relativistic Schwarzschild metric through the principle of Minimal Geometric Deformation (MGD). Since the brane tension can, in general, introduce new singularities on a relativistic E\"otv\"os brane model in the MGD framework, we require the absence of observed singularities, in order to constrain the brane tension. We then study the corresponding Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) gravitational system and determine the critical stability region of BEC MGD stellar configurations. Finally, the critical stellar densities are shown to be related with critical points of the information entropy., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

We investigate black hole production in pp collisions at the Large Hadron Collider by employing the horizon quantum mechanics for models of gravity with extra spatial dimensions. This approach can be applied to processes around the fundamental gravitational scale and naturally yields a suppression below the fundamental gravitational scale and for increasing number of extra dimensions. The results of numerical simulations performed with the black hole event generator BLACKMAX are here reported in order to illustrate the main differences in the number of expected black hole events and mass distributions.

We consider the effects of gravitons in the collapse of baryonic matter that forms a black hole. We first note that the effective number of (soft off-shell) gravitons that account for the (negative) Newtonian potential energy generated by the baryons is conserved and always in agreement with Bekenstein's area law of black holes. Moreover, their (positive) interaction energy reproduces the expected post-Newtonian correction and becomes of the order of the total ADM mass of the system when the size of the collapsing object approaches its gravitational radius. This result supports a scenario in which the gravitational collapse of regular baryonic matter produces a corpuscular black hole without central singularity, in which both gravitons and baryons are marginally bound and form a Bose-Einstein condensate at the critical point. The Hawking emission of baryons and gravitons is then described by the quantum depletion of the condensate and we show the two energy fluxes are comparable, albeit negligibly small on astrophysical scales., Comment: 4 pages, no figures. Minor changes and typos fixed

If the initial quantum state of the primordial perturbations broke rotational invariance, that would be seen as a statistical anisotropy in the angular correlations of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) temperature fluctuations. This can be described by a general parameterisation of the initial conditions that takes into account the possible direction-dependence of both the amplitude and the phase of particle creation during inflation. The leading effect in the CMBR two-point function is typically a quadrupole modulation, whose coefficient is analytically constrained here to be $|B| \lesssim 0.06$. The CMBR three-point function then acquires enhanced non-gaussianity, especially for the local configurations. In the large occupation number limit, a distinctive prediction is a modulation of the non-gaussianity around a mean value depending on the angle that short and long wavelength modes make with the preferred direction. The maximal variations with respect to the mean value occur for the configurations which are coplanar with the preferred direction and the amplitude of the non-gaussianity increases (decreases) for the short wavelength modes aligned with (perpendicular to) the preferred direction. For a high scale model of inflation with maximally pumped up isotropic occupation and $\epsilon\simeq 0.01$ the difference between these two configurations is about $0.27$, which could be detectable in the future. For purely anisotropic particle creation, the non-Gaussianity can be larger and its anisotropic feature very sharp. The non-gaussianity can then reach $f_{NL} \sim 30$ in the preferred direction while disappearing from the correlations in the orthogonal plane., Comment: v1: 13 pages, 3 figures, double column, v2: some refs added; v3: Matched the JCAP version

We consider the lower bound for the shear viscosity-to-entropy density ratio, obtained from the fluid/gravity correspondence, in order to constrain the post-Newtonian parameter of brane-world metrics. In particular, we analyse the Casadio-Fabbri-Mazzacurati (CFM) effective solutions for the gravity side of the correspondence and argue that including higher order terms in the hydrodynamic expansion can lead to a full agreement with the experimental bounds, for the Eddington-Robertson-Schiff post-Newtonian parameter in the CFM metrics. This lends further support to the physical relevance of the viscosity-to-entropy ratio lower bound and fluid/gravity correspondence. Hence we show that CFM black branes are, effectively, Schwarzschild black branes., Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures; refs. added, improved version, to appear in EPJC

We review some features of BEC models of black holes obtained by means of the HWF formalism. We consider the KG equation for a toy graviton field coupled to a static matter current in spherical symmetry. The classical field reproduces the Newtonian potential generated by the matter source, while the corresponding quantum state is given by a coherent superposition of scalar modes with continuous occupation number. An attractive self-interaction is needed for bound states to form, so that (approximately) one mode is allowed, and the system of N bosons can be self-confined in a volume of the size of the Schwarzschild radius. The HWF is then used to show that the radius of such a system corresponds to a proper horizon. The uncertainty in the size of the horizon is related to the typical energy of Hawking modes: it decreases with the increasing of the black hole mass (larger number of gravitons), in agreement with semiclassical calculations and different from a single very massive particle. The spectrum contains a discrete ground state of energy $m$ (the bosons forming the black hole), and a continuous spectrum with energy $\omega > m$ (representing the Hawking radiation and modelled with a Planckian distribution at the expected Hawking temperature). The $N$-particle state can be collectively described by a single-particle wave-function given by a superposition of a total ground state with energy $M = N m$ and a Planckian distribution for $E > M$ at the same Hawking temperature. The partition function is then found to yield the usual area law for the entropy, with a logarithmic correction related with the Hawking component. The backreaction of modes with $\omega > m$ is also shown to reduce the Hawking flux and the evaporation properly stops for vanishing mass., Comment: 30 pages, pdflatex with 6 figures. Review paper prepared for Entropy special issue "Entropy in Quantum Gravity and Quantum Cosmology"

We adapt the horizon wave-function formalism to describe massive static spherically symmetric sources in a general $(1+D)$-dimensional space-time, for $D>3$ and including the $D=1$ case. We find that the probability $P_{\rm BH}$ that such objects are (quantum) black holes behaves similarly to the probability in the $(3+1)$ framework for $D> 3$. In fact, for $D\ge 3$, the probability increases towards unity as the mass grows above the relevant $D$-dimensional Planck scale $m_D$. At fixed mass, however, $P_{\rm BH}$ decreases with increasing $D$, so that a particle with mass $m\simeq m_D$ has just about $10\%$ probability to be a black hole in $D=5$, and smaller for larger $D$. This result has a potentially strong impact on estimates of black hole production in colliders. In contrast, for $D=1$, we find the probability is comparably larger for smaller masses, but $P_{\rm BH} < 0.5$, suggesting that such lower dimensional black holes are purely quantum and not classical objects. This result is consistent with recent observations that sub-Planckian black holes are governed by an effective two-dimensional gravitation theory. Lastly, we derive Generalised Uncertainty Principle relations for the black holes under consideration, and find a minimum length corresponding to a characteristic energy scale of the order of the fundamental gravitational mass $m_D$ in $D>3$. For $D=1$ we instead find the uncertainty due to the horizon fluctuations has the same form as the usual Heisenberg contribution, and therefore no fundamental scale exists., Comment: Latex, 16 pages, 8 figures. Final version to appear in PLB

We study the properties of the poles of the resummed graviton propagator obtained by resumming bubble matter diagrams which correct the classical graviton propagator. These poles have been previously interpreted as black holes precursors. Here, we show using the Horizon Wave-Function formalism that these poles indeed have properties which make them compatible with being black hole precursors. In particular, when modeled with a Breit-Wigner distribution, they have a well defined gravitational radius. The probability that the resonance is inside its own gravitational radius, and thus that it is black hole, is about one half. Our results confirm the interpretation of these poles as black hole precursors., Comment: 11 pages

We study the corpuscular model of an evaporating black hole consisting of a specific quantum state for a large number $N$ of self-confined bosons. The single-particle spectrum contains a discrete ground state of energy $m$ (corresponding to toy gravitons forming the black hole), and a gapless continuous spectrum (to accommodate for the Hawking radiation with energy $\omega>m$). Each constituent is in a superposition of the ground state and a Planckian distribution at the expected Hawking temperature in the continuum. We first find that, assuming the Hawking radiation is the leading effect of the internal scatterings, the corresponding $N$-particle state can be collectively described by a single-particle wave-function given by a superposition of a total ground state with energy $M=N\,m$ and a Planckian distribution for $E>M$ at the same Hawking temperature. From this collective state, we compute the partition function and obtain an entropy which reproduces the usual area law with a logarithmic correction precisely related with the Hawking component. By means of the horizon wave-function for the system, we finally show the backreaction of modes with $\omega>m$ reduces the Hawking flux. Both corrections, to the entropy and to the Hawking flux, suggest the evaporation properly stops for vanishing mass, if the black hole is in this particular quantum state., Comment: PDFLaTeX, 15 pages, 2 figure. Version to appear in PRD

We investigate the Cosmic Censorship Conjecture by means of the horizon wave-function (HWF) formalism. We consider a charged massive particle whose quantum mechanical state is represented by a spherically symmetric Gaussian wave-function, and restrict our attention to the superxtremal case (with charge-to-mass ratio $\alpha>1$), which is the prototype of a naked singularity in the classical theory. We find that one can still obtain a normalisable HWF for $\alpha^2<{2}$, and this configuration has a non-vanishing probability of being a black hole, thus extending the classically allowed region for a charged black hole. However, the HWF is not normalisable for $\alpha^2 > 2$, and the uncertainty in the location of the horizon blows up at $\alpha^2=2$, signalling that such an object is no more well-defined. This perhaps implies that a quantum Cosmic Censorhip might be conjectured by stating that no black holes with charge-to-mass ratio greater than a critical value (of the order of $\sqrt{2}$) can exist., Comment: RevTeX4, 6 pages, 2 figures. Typos corrected and comments added. Version to appear in PLB

The minimal geometric deformation approach was introduced in order to study the exterior space-time around spherically symmetric self-gravitating systems, like stars or similar astrophysical objects as well, in the Randall-Sundrum brane-world framework. A consistent extension of this approach is developed here, which contains modifications of both the time component and the radial component of a spherically symmetric metric. A modified Schwarzschild geometry is obtained as an example of its simplest application, and a new solution potentially useful to describe stars in the brane-world is also presented., Comment: Improved version with new solutions. 11 pages, 4 figures. To be published in CQG

We consider a solution of the effective four-dimensional brane-world equations, obtained from the General Relativistic Schwarzschild metric via the principle of Minimal Geometric Deformation, and investigate the corresponding signatures stemming from the possible existence of a warped extra dimension. In particular, we derive bounds on an extra-dimensional parameter, closely related with the fundamental gravitational length, from the experimental results of the classical tests of General Relativity in the Solar system., Comment: 6 pages, slightly improved, to appear in Europhysics Letters

We study the nature of the inner Cauchy horizon of a Reissner-Nordstr\"om black hole in a quantum context by means of the horizon wave-function obtained from modelling the electrically charged source as a Gaussian wave-function. Our main finding it that there is a significant range of black hole mass (around the Planck scale) and specific charge for which the probability of realizing the inner horizon is negligible. This result suggests that any semiclassical instability one expects near the inner horizon may not be occur in quantum black holes., Comment: RevTeX4, 7 pages, 4 figures: new section about HWF added for clarity, references updated, results unchanged. Version to appear in JHEP

Following a new quantum cosmological model proposed by Dvali and Gomez, we quantitatively investigate possible modifications to the Hubble parameter and following corrections to the cosmic microwave background spectrum. In this model, scalar and tensor perturbations are generated by the quantum depletion of the background inflaton and graviton condensate respectively. We show how the inflaton mass affects the power spectra and the tensor-to-scalar ratio. Masses approaching the Planck scale would lead to strong deviations, while standard spectra are recovered for an inflaton mass much smaller than the Planck mass., Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures; revised version to match published version

We compute the corrections to the Schwarzschild metric necessary to reproduce the Hawking temperature derived from a Generalized Uncertainty Principle (GUP), so that the GUP deformation parameter is directly linked to the deformation of the metric. Using this modified Schwarzschild metric, we compute corrections to the standard General Relativistic predictions for the light deflection and perihelion precession, both for planets in the solar system and for binary pulsars. This analysis allows us to set bounds for the GUP deformation parameter from well-known astronomical measurements., Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures

We employ the recently proposed formalism of the "horizon wave-function" to investigate the emergence of a horizon in models of black holes as Bose-Einstein condensates of gravitons. We start from the Klein-Gordon equation for a massless scalar (toy graviton) field coupled to a static matter current. The (spherically symmetric) classical field reproduces the Newtonian potential generated by the matter source, and the corresponding quantum state is given by a coherent superposition of scalar modes with continuous occupation number. Assuming an attractive self-interaction that allows for bound states, one finds that (approximately) only one mode is allowed, and the system can be confined in a region of the size of the Schwarzschild radius. This radius is then shown to correspond to a proper horizon, by means of the horizon wave-function of the quantum system, with an uncertainty in size naturally related to the expected typical energy of Hawking modes. In particular, this uncertainty decreases for larger black hole mass (with larger number of light scalar quanta), in agreement with semiclassical expectations, a result which does not hold for a single very massive particle. We finally speculate that a phase transition should occur during the gravitational collapse of a star, ideally represented by a static matter current and Newtonian potential, that leads to a black hole, again ideally represented by the condensate of toy gravitons, and suggest an effective order parameter that could be used to investigate this transition., Comment: 25 pages, 6 figures. Improved text and typos fixed. Final version to appear in PRD

We review the main consequences of the possible existence of a minimum measurable length, of the order of the Planck scale, on quantum effects occurring in black hole physics. In particular, we focus on the ensuing minimum mass for black holes and how modified dispersion relations affect the Hawking decay, both in four space-time dimensions and in models with extra spatial dimensions. In the latter case, we briefly discuss possible phenomenological signatures., Comment: 29 pages, 12 figures. To be published in "Quantum Aspects of Black Holes", ed. X. Calmet (Springer, 2014)

The minimal geometric deformation approach is employed to show the existence of brane-world stellar distributions with vacuum Schwarzschild exterior, thus without energy leaking from the exterior of the brane-world star into the extra dimension. The interior satisfies all elementary criteria of physical acceptability for a stellar solution, namely, it is regular at the origin, the pressure and density are positive and decrease monotonically with increasing radius, finally all energy conditions are fulfilled. A very thin solid crust with negative radial pressure separates the interior from the exterior, having a thickness $\Delta $ inversely proportional to both the brane tension $\sigma $ and the radius $R$ of the star, i.e. $\Delta ^{-1}\sim R\,\sigma $. This brane-world star with Schwarzschild exterior would appear only thermally radiating to a distant observer and be fully compatible with the stringent constraints imposed on stellar parameters by observations of gravitational lensing, orbital evolutions or properties of accretion disks., Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures. Improved version. To be published in Classical and Quantum Gravity

We address the issue of (quantum) black hole formation by particle collision in quantum physics. We start by constructing the horizon wave-function for quantum mechanical states representing two highly boosted non-interacting particles that collide in flat one-dimensional space. From this wave-function, we then derive a probability that the system becomes a black hole as a function of the initial momenta and spatial separation between the particles. This probability allows us to extend the hoop conjecture to quantum mechanics and estimate corrections to its classical counterpart., Comment: RevTeX 6 pages, 3 figures. Final version to appear in PLB

We reconsider perturbative unitarity violation in the standard model Higgs inflation model. We show that the Cutkosky cutting rule implied by perturbative unitarity is fulfilled at one-loop. This is a strong indication that unitarity is restored order by order in perturbation theory. We then resum certain one-loop diagrams and show that the relevant dressed amplitude fulfills the Cutkosky rule exactly. This is an example of the self-healing mechanism. The original Higgs inflation model is thus consistent and does not require any new physics beyond the standard model at least up to the Planck scale., Comment: 9 pages

Inspired by the recent conjecture that black holes are condensates of gravitons, we investigate a simple model for the black hole degrees of freedom that is consistent both from the point of view of Quantum mechanics and of General Relativity. Since the two perspectives should "converge" into a unified picture for small, Planck size, objects, we expect our construction is a useful step for understanding the physics of microscopic, quantum black holes. In particular, we show that a harmonically trapped condensate gives rise to two horizons, whereas the extremal case (corresponding to a remnant with vanishing Hawking temperature) is not contained in the spectrum., Comment: 6 pages. Contribution to the Proceedings of the Karl Schwarzschild Meeting (Frankfurt, July 22-26, 2013)

We study brane-world models with variable brane tension and compute corrections to the horizon of a black string along the extra dimension. The four-dimensional geometry of the black string on the brane is obtained by means of the minimal geometric deformation approach, and the bulk corrections are then encoded in additional terms involving the covariant derivatives of the variable brane tension. Our investigation shows that the variable brane tension strongly affects the shape and evolution of the black string horizon along the extra dimension, at least in a near-brane expansion. In particular, we apply our general analysis to a model motivated by the E\"otv\"os branes, where the variable brane tension is related to the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker brane-world cosmology. We show that for some stages in the evolution of the universe, the black string warped horizon collapses to a point and the black string has correspondingly finite extent along the extra dimension. Furthermore, we show that in the minimal geometric deformation of a black hole on the variable tension brane, the black string has a throat along the extra dimension, whose area tends to zero as time goes to infinity., Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures

We explore the possibility that, in a quantum field theory with Planck scale cutoff Lambda=Mp, observable quantities for low-energy processes respect the Lorentz symmetry. In particular, we compute the one-loop radiative correction Pi to the self-energy of a scalar field with lambda phi^4 interaction, using a modified (non-invariant) propagator which vanishes in the trans-Planckian regime, as expected in the "classicalization" scenario. We then show that, by imposing the result does not depend on Lambda (in the limit Lambda to Mp), an explicit (albeit not unique) expression for Pi can be derived, which is similar to the one simply obtained with the standard Feynman propagator and a cutoff Lambda=Mp., Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure, section about fluctuating cutoff added, final version to appear in PLB

We build analytical models of spherically symmetric stars in the brane-world, in which the external space-time contains both an ADM mass and a tidal charge. In order to determine the interior geometry, we apply the principle of minimal geometric deformation, which allows one to map General Relativistic solutions to solutions of the effective four-dimensional brane-world equations. We further restrict our analysis to stars with a radius linearly related to the total General Relativistic mass, and obtain a general relation between the latter, the brane-world ADM mass and the tidal charge. In these models, the value of the star's radius can then be taken to zero smoothly, thus obtaining brane-world black hole metrics with a tidal charge solely determined by the mass of the source and the brane tension. General conclusions regarding the minimum mass for semiclassical black holes will also be drawn., Comment: 23 pages, 2 figures, references added and updated

Asymptotic safety (an ultraviolet fixed point with finite-dimensional critical surface) offers the possibility that a predictive theory of quantum gravity can be obtained from the quantization of classical general relativity. However, it is unclear what becomes of the singularities of classical general relativity, which, it is hoped, might be resolved by quantum effects. We study dust collapse with a running gravitational coupling and find that a future singularity can be avoided if the coupling becomes exactly zero at some finite energy scale. The singularity can also be avoided (pushed off to infinite proper time) if the coupling approaches zero sufficiently rapidly at high energies. However, the evolution deduced from perturbation theory still implies a singularity at finite proper time., Comment: 6 pages, latex. Version to appear in Physics Letters B

We consider generalizations of the entropic accelerating universe recently proposed in Ref. [4,5] and show that their background equations can be made equivalent to a model with a dark energy component with constant parameter of state $w_{X} = -1 + 2\, \gamma /3$, where $\gamma$ is related to the coefficients of the new terms in the Friedman equations. After discussing all the Friedman equations for an arbitrary $\gamma$, we show how to recover the standard scalings for dust and radiation. The acoustic scale $\ell_A$, related to the peak positions in the pattern of the angular power spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropies, is also computed and yields the stringent bound $|\gamma|\ll 1$. We then argue that future data might be able to distinguish this model from pure $\Lambda$CDM (corresponding to $\gamma=0$)., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review D

We study the phenomenological implications stemming from the dependence of the tidal charge on the brane thickness $L$ for the evaporation and decay of microscopic black holes. In general, the larger $L$, the longer are the black hole life-times and the greater their maximum mass for those cases in which the black hole can grow. In particular, we again find that tidal-charged black holes might live long enough to escape the detectors and even the gravitational field of the Earth, thus resulting in large amounts of missing energy. However, under no circumstances could TeV-scale black holes grow enough to enter the regime of Bondi accretion., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, Clarification of tidal charge expression. Additional justification of constraints

Over the last few years, it was realised that non-canonical scalar fields can lead to the accelerated expansion in the early universe. The primordial spectrum in these scenarios not only shows near scale-invariance consistent with CMB observations,but also large primordial non-Gaussianity. Second-order perturbation theory is the primary theoretical tool to investigate such non-Gaussianity. However, it is still uncertain which quantities are gauge-invariant at second-order and their physical understanding therefore remains unclear. As an attempt to understand second order quantities, we consider a general non-canonical scalar field, minimally coupled to gravity, on the unperturbed FRW background where metric fluctuations are neglected a priori. In this simplified set-up, we show that there arise ambiguities in the expressions of physically relevant quantities, such as the effective speeds of the perturbations. Further, the stress tensor and energy density display a potential instability which is not present at linear order., Comment: 3 Pages, To appear in the Proceedings of the 12th Marcel Grossman Meeting

We analyse a family of brane-world black holes which solve the effective four-dimensional Einstein equations for a wide range of parameters related to the unknown bulk/brane physics. We first constrain the parameters using known experimental bounds and, for the allowed cases, perform a numerical analysis of their time evolution, which includes accretion through the Earth. The study is aimed at predicting the typical behavior one can expect if such black holes were produced at the LHC. Most notably, we find that, under no circumstances, would the black holes reach the (hazardous) regime of Bondi accretion. Nonetheless, the possibility remains that black holes live long enough to escape from the accelerator (and even from the Earth's gravitational field) and result in missing energy from the detectors., Comment: RevTeX4, 12 pages, 4 figures, 5 tables, minor changes to match the accepted version in JHEP

Horava-Lifshitz theory of gravity with detailed balance is plagued by the presence of a negative bare (or geometrical) cosmological constant which makes its cosmology clash with observations. We argue that adding the effects of the large vacuum energy of quantum matter fields, this bare cosmological constant can be approximately compensated to account for the small observed (total) cosmological constant. Even though we cannot address the fine-tuning problem in this way, we are able to establish a relation between the smallness of observed cosmological constant and the length scale at which dimension 4 corrections to the Einstein gravity become significant for cosmology. This scale turns out to be approximately 5 times the Planck length for an (almost) vanishing observed cosmological constant and we therefore argue that its smallness guarantees that Lorentz invariance is broken only at very small scales. We are also able to provide a first rough estimation for the infrared values of the parameters of the theory $\mu$ and $Lambda_w$., Comment: 9 pages, Latex