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In Radio Super Novae (RSNe) a magnetic field of $(B \, \times \, r) \, = \, 10^{16.0 \pm 0.12} \, {\rm Gauss \, \times \, cm}$ is observed; these are the same numbers for Blue Super Giant (BSG) star explosions as for Red Super Giant (RSG) star explosions, despite their very different wind properties. The EHT data for M87 as well for low power radio galaxies all show consistency with just this value of the quantity $(B \, \times \, r )$, key for angular momentum and energy transport, and can be derived from the radio jet data. We interpret this as a property of the near surroundings of a black hole (BH) at near maximal rotation, independent of BH mass. In the commonly used green onion model, in which a $2 \, \pi$ flow changes over to a jet flow we interpret this as a wind emanating from the BH/accretion disk system and its surroundings. Near the BH collisions in the wind can produce a large fraction of anti-protons. In this scenario the cosmic Ray (CR) population from the wind/jet is proposed to be visible as EeV protons and anti-protons in the CR data to EeV energy, with a $E^{-7/3}$ spectrum. This can be connected to a concept of inner and outer Penrose zones in the ergo-region. The observed numbers for the magnetic field imply the Planck time as the governing time scale: A BH rotating near maximum can accept a proton per log bin of energy in an extended spectrum with the associated pions every Planck time., Comment: 81 pages, 5 figures, invited paper (in press), Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences

The AMS experiment on the International Space Station has provided detailed cosmic ray spectra for various elements, revealing that interactions significantly reduce fluxes up to about 100 GV rigidity. This necessitates revisiting current cosmic ray interaction models. A new model proposed here involves cosmic ray interactions first in the wind shock shell of supergiant stars and second in the OB-Superbubble around supernovae. These stars, including red and blue supergiants, produce black holes and drive electric currents in winds and jets. Variability in these winds creates temporary electric fields that accelerate particles, resulting in steep spectra with synchrotron losses, and analogous hadron spectra produce a flat magnetic irregularity spectrum. This model matches AMS data, explaining cosmic ray spectra below 100 GV. The model predicts a secondary/primary ratio slope of -1/3 and a primary flux reduction below 100 GV relative to a power-law spectrum with slope +2. Key aspects are: a larger interaction column due to heavy element enrichment and a minor secondary contribution even for elements like He, C, and O, as indicated by the $^3$He/$^4$He ratio. This model also accounts for cosmic ray anti-protons, gamma-ray spectra, and high-energy neutrinos, including contributions from ISM-SNe., Comment: 65 pages, 1 figure, Astroparticle Physics Journal (accepted)

We summarize the radio synchrotron background workshop that took place July 19-21, 2017 at the University of Richmond. This first scientific meeting dedicated to the topic was convened because current measurements of the diffuse radio monopole reveal a surface brightness that is several times higher than can be straightforwardly explained by known Galactic and extragalactic sources and processes, rendering it by far the least well understood photon background at present. It was the conclusion of a majority of the participants that the radio monopole level is at or near that reported by the ARCADE 2 experiment and inferred from several absolutely calibrated zero level lower frequency radio measurements, and unanimously agreed that the production of this level of surface brightness, if confirmed, represents a major outstanding question in astrophysics. The workshop reached a consensus on the next priorities for investigations of the radio synchrotron background., Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures, updated to journal version

We show that the nonlinear $\sigma-$model in an asymptotically $AdS_3$ space-time admits a novel local symmetry. The field action is assumed to be quartic in the nonlinear $\sigma-$model fields and minimally coupled to gravity. The local symmetry transformation simultaneously twists the nonlinear $\sigma-$model fields and changes the space-time metric, and it can be used to map an extremal $BTZ$ black hole to infinitely many hairy black hole solutions., Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, minor corrections included

We obtain numerical solutions for rotating topological solitons of the nonlinear $\sigma$-model in three-dimensional Anti-de Sitter space. Two types of solutions, $i)$ and $ii)$, are found. The $\sigma$-model fields are everywhere well defined for both types of solutions, but they differ in their space-time domains. Any time slice of the space-time for the type $i)$ solution has a causal singularity, despite the fact that all scalars constructed the curvature tensor are bounded functions. No evidence of a horizon is seen for any of the solutions, and therefore the type $i)$ solutions have naked singularities. On the other hand, the space-time domain, along with the fields, for the type $ii)$ solutions are singularity free. Multiple families of solutions exhibiting bifurcation phenomena are found for this case., Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures

We present the geometric formulation of gravity based on the mathematical structure of a Lie Algebroid. We show that this framework provides the geometrical setting to describe the gauge propriety of gravity., Comment: We corrected a mistake in Eq (8). This equation is only part of the review presented in the introduction and does not effect the rest of the paper

The microcanonical ensemble is the proper ensemble to describe black holes which are not in thermodynamic equilibrium, such as radiating black holes. This choice of ensemble eliminates the problems, e.g. negative specific heat and loss of unitarity, encountered when the canonical ensemble is used. In this review we present an overview of the weaknesses of the standard thermodynamic description of black holes and show how the microcanonical approach can provide a consistent description of black holes and their Hawking radiation at all energy scales. Our approach is based on viewing the horizon area as yielding the ensemble density at fixed system energy. We then compare the decay rates of black holes in the two different pictures. Our description is particularly relevant for the analysis of micro-black holes whose existence is predicted in models with extra- spatial dimensions., Comment: Review article published in Entropy special issue "Entropy in quantum gravity", editor R. Garattini

Upon applying Chamseddine's noncommutative deformation of gravity we obtain the leading order noncommutative corrections to the Robertson-Walker metric tensor. We get an isotropic inhomogeneous metric tensor for a certain choice of the noncommutativity parameters. Moreover, the singularity of the commutative metric at $t=0$ is replaced by a more involved space-time structure in the noncommutative theory. In a toy model we construct a scenario where there is no singularity at $t=0$ at leading order in the noncommutativity parameter. Although singularities may still be present for nonzero $t$, they need not be the source of all time-like geodesics and the result resembles a bouncing cosmology., Comment: 13 pages

In this paper we calculate the zero point energy density experienced by observers on M^4 due to a massless scalar field defined throughout M^4 x T^2_F, where T^2_F are fuzzy extra dimensions. Using the Green's function approach we calculate the energy density for the commutative torus and the fuzzy torus. We calculate then the energy density for the fuzzy torus using the Hamiltonian approach. Agreement is shown between Green's function and Hamiltonian approaches., Comment: RevTeX4

We study a system of electrons moving on a noncommutative plane in the presence of an external magnetic field which is perpendicular to this plane. For generality we assume that the coordinates and the momenta are both noncommutative. We make a transformation from the noncommutative coordinates to a set of commuting coordinates and then we write the Hamiltonian for this system. The energy spectrum and the expectation value of the current can then be calculated and the Hall conductivity can be extracted. We use the same method to calculate the phase shift for the Aharonov-Bohm effect. Precession measurements could allow strong upper limits to be imposed on the noncommutativity coordinate and momentum parameters $\Theta$ and $\Xi$., Comment: 9 pages, RevTeX4, references added, small changes in the text

We study the possibility that dark energy is a manifestation of the Casimir energy on extra dimensions with the topology of $S^2$. We consider our universe to be $M^4 \times S^2$ and modify the geometry by introducing noncommutativity on the extra dimensions only, i.e. replacing $S^2$ with the fuzzy version $S_{F}^2$. We find the energy density as a function of the size of the representation $M+1$ of the algebra of $S_{F}^2$, and we calculate its value for the $M+1=2$ case. The value of the energy density turns out to be positive, i.e. provides dark energy, and the size of the extra dimensions agrees with the experimental limit. We also recover the correct commutative limit as the noncommutative parameter goes to zero., Comment: 6 pages, RevTeX4

We study the evaporation of black holes in non-commutative space-times. We do this by calculating the correction to the detector's response function for a moving mirror in terms of the noncommutativity parameter $\Theta$ and then extracting the number density as modified by this parameter. We find that allowing space and time to be non-commutative increases the decay rate of a black hole., Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure

We study the conditions for the existence of black holes that can be produced in colliders at TeV-scale if the space-time is higher dimensional. On employing the microcanonical picture, we find that their life-times strongly depend on the details of the model. If the extra dimensions are compact (ADD model), microcanonical deviations from thermality are in general significant near the fundamental TeV mass and tiny black holes decay more slowly than predicted by the canonical expression, but still fast enough to disappear almost instantaneously. However, with one warped extra dimension (RS model), microcanonical corrections are much larger and tiny black holes appear to be (meta)stable. Further, if the total charge is not zero, we argue that naked singularities do not occur provided the electromagnetic field is strictly confined on an infinitely thin brane. However, they might be produced in colliders if the effective thickness of the brane is of the order of the fundamental length scale (~1/TeV)., Comment: 6 pages, RevTeX 3, 1 figure and 1 table, important changes and additions

We study the evaporation of black holes in space-times with extra dimensions of size L. We show that the luminosity is greatly damped when the horizon becomes smaller than L and black holes born with an initial size smaller than L are almost stable. This effect is due to the dependence of both the occupation number density of Hawking quanta and the grey-body factor of a black hole on the dimensionality of space., Comment: LaTeX2e with Rinton style, 4 pages, 2 figure EPS files, to appear in the Proceedings of PASCOS 2001

Starting from a WZWN action in the ISO(2,1) Poincare' group which describes a bosonized spinning string in 2+1 Minkowski space-time, we show that a sequence of non-trivial compactifications leads to the description of a spinless string which moves in a (linear dilaton) vacuum, AdS_3 or BTZ black hole background. Other solutions are also obtained and their T-duals analyzed., Comment: REVTeX, 13 pages, 1 EPS figure included

In this paper we analyze a binary system consisting of a star and a rotating black hole. The electromagnetic radiation emitted by the star interacts with the background of the black hole and stimulates the production of dilaton waves. We then estimate the energy transferred from the electromagnetic radiation of the star to the dilaton field as a function of the frequency. The resulting picture is a testable signature of the existence of dilaton fields as predicted by string theory in an astrophysical context., Comment: REVTeX, 13 pages, 3 figures

Charged black holes, both spherically symmetric and rotating, in the low energy limit of string theory (Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton theory) are compared to analogous geometries in pure general relativity. We describe various physical differences and investigate some experiments which can distinguish between the two theories. In particular we discuss the gyro-magnetic ratios of rotating black holes and the propagation of light on black hole backgrounds. For the former we obtain an expression in the Einstein frame (EF) which is different from the one in the String frame (SF). This (and other results) can be used to test the stringy nature of matter. For a binary system consisting of a star and a rotating black hole, we give estimates of the damping of electro-magnetic radiation coming from the star due to the existence of a scalar component of gravity., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the 19th Texas Symposium, Paris, 14-18 Dec 1998

The descriptions of Reissner-Nordstroem and Kerr-Newman dilatonic black holes in the Einstein frame are compared to those in the string frame. We describe various physical measurements in the two frames and show which experiments can distinguish between the two frames. In particular we discuss the gyromagnetic ratios of black holes, the decay law via Hawking radiation and the propagation of light on black hole backgrounds., Comment: REVTeX, 11 pages, 3 EPS figures

In this paper we continue the analysis of our previous papers and study the affect of the existence of a non-trivial dilaton background on the propagation of electromagnetic waves in the Kerr-Newman dilatonic black hole space-time. For this purpose we again employ the double expansion in both the background electric charge and the wave parameters of the relevant quantities in the Newman-Penrose formalism and then identify the first order at which the dilaton background enters the Maxwell equations. We then assume that gravitational and dilatonic waves are negligible (at that order in the charge parameter) with respect to electromagnetic waves and argue that this condition is consistent with the solutions already found in the previous paper. Explicit expressions are given for the asymptotic behavior of scattered waves, and a simple physical model is proposed in order to test the effects. An expression for the relative intensity is obtained for Reissner-Nordstrom dilaton black holes using geometrical optics. A comparison with the approximation of geometrical optics for Kerr-Newman dilaton black holes shows that at the order to which the calculations are carried out gravitational lensing of optical images cannot probe the dilaton background., Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure

The microcanonical treatment of black holes as opposed to the canonical formulation is reviewed and some major differences are displayed. In particular the decay rates are compared in the two different pictures., Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures, Revtex, Minor change in format

The thermodynamical description of black holes is reviewed and critiqued. We present an alternative, microcanonical description of black holes and discuss the major differences. In particular the decay rates of black holes are compared in the two different pictures., Comment: 3 pages, mprocl.sty, To appear in the proceedings of the 8th Marcel Grossmann Meeting

The Bekenstein-Hawking ``entropy'' of a Kerr-Newman dilaton black hole is computed in a perturbative expansion in the charge-to-mass ratio. The most probable configuration for a gas of such black holes is analyzed in the microcanonical formalism and it is argued that it does not satisfy the equipartition principle but a bootstrap condition. It is also suggested that the present results are further support for an interpretation of black holes as excitations of extended objects., Comment: RevTeX, 5 pages, 2 PS figures included (requires epsf), submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett

In this paper we analyze the perturbations of the Kerr-Newman dilatonic black hole background. For this purpose we perform a double expansion in both the background electric charge and the wave parameters of the relevant quantities in the Newman-Penrose formalism. We then display the gravitational, dilatonic and electromagnetic equations, which reproduce the static solution (at zero order in the wave parameter) and the corresponding wave equations in the Kerr background (at first order in the wave parameter and zero order in the electric charge). At higher orders in the electric charge one encounters corrections to the propagations of waves induced by the presence of a non-vanishing dilaton. An explicit computation is carried out for the electromagnetic waves up to the asymptotic form of the Maxwell field perturbations produced by the interaction with dilatonic waves. A simple physical model is proposed which could make these perturbations relevant to the detection of radiation coming from the region of space near a black hole., Comment: RevTeX, 36 pages in preprint style, 1 figure posted as a separate PS file, submitted to Phys. Rev. D

This work describes new perturbative solutions to the classical, four-dimensional Kerr--Newman dilaton black hole field equations. Our solutions do not require the black hole to be slowly rotating. The unperturbed solution is taken to be the ordinary Kerr solution, and the perturbation parameter is effectively the square of the charge-to-mass ratio $(Q/M)^2$ of the Kerr--Newman black hole. We have uncovered a new, exact conjugation (mirror) symmetry for the theory, which maps the small coupling sector to the strong coupling sector ($\phi \to -\phi$). We also calculate the gyromagnetic ratio of the black hole., Comment: Revtex, 27 pages

We write down a general action principle for spinning strings in 2+1 dimensional space-time without introducing Grassmann variables. The action is written solely in terms of coordinates taking values in the 2+1 Poincare group, and it has the usual string symmetries, i.e. it is invariant under a) diffeomorphisms of the world sheet and b) Poincare transformations. The system can be generalized to an arbitrary number of space-time dimensions, and also to spinning membranes and p-branes., Comment: Latex, 12 pages

Within the context of the recently formulated classical gauge theory of relativistic p-branes minimally coupled to general relativity in D-dimensional spacetimes, we obtain solutions of the field equations which describe black objects. Explicit solutions are found for two cases: D > p+1 (true p-branes) and D = p+1 (p-bags)., Comment: 9 pages, REVTEX 3.0

We review briefly the thermodynamical interpretation of black hole physics and discuss the problems and inconsistencies in this approach. We provide an alternative interpretation of black holes as quantum objects and investigate the statistical mechanics of a gas of such objects in the microcanonical ensemble. We argue that the theory of black holes has the conformal properties of duality and satisfaction of the statistical bootstrap condition. We show in the context of mean field theory that the thermal vacuum is the false vacuum for a black hole and define a microcanonical vacuum which leads to a number density characteristic of pure states for the Hawking radiation., Comment: 13 pages, LATEX; Figure sent upon request

Canonical quantization of local field theories is classical black hole spacetimes with a single horizon leads to a particle number density with a thermal distribution in equilibrium at the Hawking temperature. A complete treatment including non-local quantum gravity effects has shown however that the full "thermal vacuum" of the theory is the false vacuum. In this work we find the true vacuum consistent with the complete semiclassical analysis of quantum black holes. The theory is described by a "microcanonical" quantum field theory with fixed energy E = M, the mass of the black hole. Considerations making use of the microcanonical density matrix as well as the idempotency condition show that particles in black hole backgrounds are described by pure states, unlike the canonical formulation., Comment: 16 pages, REVTEX

Two types of semiclassical calculations have been used to study quantum effects in black hole backgrounds, the WKB and the mean field approaches. In this work we systematically reconstruct the logical implications of both methods on quantum black hole physics and provide the link between these two approaches. Our conclusions completely support our previous findings based solely on the WKB method: quantum black holes are effectively p-brane excitations and, consequently, no information loss paradox exists in this problem., Comment: 14 pages, REVTEX

We consider modifications to general relativity by the non-local (classical and quantum) string effects for the case of a D-dimensional Scwarzschild black hole. The classical non-local effects do not alter the spacetime topology (the horizon remains unshifted, at least perturbatively). We suggest a simple analytic continuation of the perturbative result into the non-perturbative domain, which eliminates the black hole singularity at the origin and yields an ultraviolet-finite theory of quantum gravity. We investigate the quantum non- local effects (including massive modes) and argue that the inclusion of these back reactions resolves the problem of the thermal spectrum in the semi- classical approach of field quantization in a black hole background, through the bootstrap condition. The density of states for both the quantum and thermal interpretation of the WKB formula are finally shown to differ quant- itatively when including the non-local effects., Comment: 16 pages, REVTEX

Non-local (alpha prime) corrections to Schwarzschild black holes are shown to invalidate the thermodynamical interpretation of black holes. In particular, the canonical and Bekenstein-Hawking temperatures are not equal. The particle number density of fields quantized in the (alpha prime modified) black hole background is no longer thermal. In the non-perturbative region (alpha prime going to infinity or mass going to zero), an analytic continuation to the number density is shown to vanish exponentially., Comment: 8 pages, REVTEX

We consider modifications to general relativity due to non-local string effects by using perturbation theory about the 4-dimensional Schwarzschild black hole metric. In keeping with our interpretation in previous works of black holes as quantum p-branes we investigate non-local effects due to a critical bosonic string compactified down to 4 dimensions. We show that non-local effects do not alter the spacetime topology (at least perturbatively), but they do lead to violations of the area law of black hole thermodynamics and to Hawking's first law of black hole thermodynamics. We also consider a simple analytic continuation of our perturbaive result into the non-perturbative region, which yields an ultraviolet-finite theory of quantum gravity. The Hawking temperature goes to zero in the non-perturbative region (zero string tension parameter), which is consistent with the view that Planck-size physics is quantum mechanical., Comment: 16 pages, Revtex

We treat the horizons of charged, dilaton black extended objects as quantum mechanical objects. We show that the S matrix for such an object can be written in terms of a p-brane-like action. The requirements of unitarity of the S matrix and positivity of the p-brane tension equivalent severely restrict the number of space-time dimensions and the allowed values of the dilaton parameter a. Generally, black objects transform at the extremal limit into p-branes., Comment: 9 pages, REVTEX

We extend the considerations of a previous paper on black hole statistical mechanics to the case of black extended objects such as black strings and black membranes in 10-dimensional space-time. We obtain a general expression for the Euclidean action of quantum black p-branes and derive their corresponding degeneracy of states. The statistical mechanics of a gas of black p-branes is then analyzed in the microcanonical ensemble. As in the case of black holes, the equilibrium state is not thermal and the stable configuration is the one for which a single black object carries most of the energy. Again, neutral black p-branes obey the bootstrap condition and it is then possible to argue that their scattering amplitudes satisfy crossing symmetry. Finally, arguments identifying quantum black p-branes with ordinary quantum branes of different dimensionality are presented., Comment: 20 pages, Revtex

We extend a previous calculation which treated Schwarschild black hole horizons as quantum mechanical objects to the case of a charged, dilaton black hole. We show that for a unique value of the dilaton parameter `a', which is determined by the condition of unitarity of the S matrix, black holes transform at the extremal limit into strings., Comment: 8 pages, REVTEX

We analyze the statistical mechanics of a gas of neutral and charged black holes. The microcanonical ensemble is the only possible approach to this system, and the equilibrium configuration is the one for which most of the energy is carried by a single black hole. Schwarzschild black holes are found to obey the statistical bootstrap condition. In all cases, the microcanonical temperature is identical to the Hawking temperature of the most massive black hole in the gas. U(1) charges in general break the bootstrap property. The problems of black hole decay and of quantum coherence are also addressed., Comment: 21 pages