Traschen, Jennie

Job Title

Professor, Department of Physics

Last Name

Traschen

First Name

Jennie

Discipline

Physics

Expertise

Classical and Quantum Gravity

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 25

Do Killing–Yano tensors form a Lie algebra?
(2007-01-01) Kastor, David; Ray, Sourya; Traschen, Jennie
Killing–Yano tensors are natural generalizations of Killing vectors. We investigate whether Killing–Yano tensors form a graded Lie algebra with respect to the Schouten–Nijenhuis bracket. We find that this proposition does not hold in general, but that it does hold for constant curvature spacetimes. We also show that Minkowski and (anti)-deSitter spacetimes have the maximal number of Killing–Yano tensors of each rank and that the algebras of these tensors under the SN bracket are relatively simple extensions of the Poincaré and (A)dS symmetry algebras.
Conserved gravitational charges from Yano tensors
(2004-01-01) Kastor, David; Traschen, Jennie
The defining properties of Yano tensors naturally generalize those of Killing vectors to anti-symmetric tensor fields of arbitrary rank. We show how the Yano tensors of flat spacetime can be used to construct new, conserved gravitational charges for transverse asymptotically flat spacetimes. The relationship of these new charges to Yano tensors parallels that of ordinary ADM conserved charges to Killing vectors. Hence, we call them Y-ADM charges. A rank n Y-ADM charge is given by an integral over a co-dimension n slice of spatial infinity. In particular, a rank (p+1) Y-ADM charge in a p-brane spacetime is given by an integral over only the sphere SD−(p+2) surrounding the brane and may be regarded as an intensive property of the brane.
Stresses and strains in the first law for Kaluza-Klein black holes
(2006-01-01) Kastor, David; Traschen, Jennie
We consider how variations in the moduli of the compactification manifold contribute `pdV' type work terms to the first law for Kaluza-Klein black holes. We give a new proof for the S1 case, based on Hamiltonian methods, which demonstrates that the result holds for arbitrary perturbations around a static black hole background. We further apply these methods to derive the first law for black holes in 2-torus compactifications, where there are three real moduli. We find that the result can be simply stated in terms of constructs familiar from the physics of elastic materials, the stress and strain tensors. The strain tensor encodes the change in size and shape of the 2-torus as the moduli are varied. The role of the stress tensor is played by a tension tensor, which generalizes the spacetime tension that enters the first law in the S1 case.
Testing cosmic censorship with black hole collisions
(1994) Brill, D; Horowitz, G; Kastor, David; Traschen, Jennie
There exists an upper limit on the mass of black holes when the cosmological constant Λ is positive. We study the collision of two black holes whose total mass exceeds this limit. Our investigation is based on a recently discovered exact solution describing the collision of Q=M black holes with Λ>0. The global structure of this solution is analyzed. We find that if the total mass is less than the extremal limit, then the black holes coalesce. If it is greater, then a naked singularity forms to the future of a Cauchy horizon. However, the horizon is not smooth. Generically, there is a mild curvature singularity, which still allows geodesics to be extended. The implications of these results for cosmic censorship are discussed.
The first law for boosted Kaluza-Klein black holes
(2007-01-01) Kastor, David; Ray, Sourya; Traschen, Jennie
We study the thermodynamics of Kaluza-Klein black holes with momentum along the compact dimension, but vanishing angular momentum. These black holes are stationary, but non-rotating. We derive the first law for these spacetimes and find that the parameter conjugate to variations in the length of the compact direction is an effective tension, which generally differs from the ADM tension. For the boosted black string, this effective tension is always positive, while the ADM tension is negative for large boost parameter. We also derive two Smarr formulas, one that follows from time translation invariance, and a second one that holds only in the case of exact translation symmetry in the compact dimension. Finally, we show that the `tension first law' derived by Traschen and Fox in the static case has the form of a thermodynamic Gibbs-Duhem relation and give its extension in the stationary, non-rotating case.
A positive energy theorem for asymptotically de Sitter spacetimes
(2002-01-01) Kastor, David; Traschen, Jennie
We construct a set of conserved charges for asymptotically de Sitter spacetimes that correspond to asymptotic conformal isometries. The charges are given by boundary integrals at spatial infinity in the flat cosmological slicing of de Sitter. Using a spinor construction, we show that the charge associated with conformal time translations is necessarily positive and hence may provide a useful definition of energy for these spacetimes. A similar spinor construction shows that the charge associated with the time translation Killing vector of de Sitter in static coordinates has both positive and negative definite contributions. For Schwarzschild–de Sitter the conformal energy we define is given by the mass parameter times the cosmological scale factor. The time dependence of the charge is a consequence of a nonzero flux of the corresponding conserved current at spatial infinity. For small perturbations of de Sitter, the charge is given by the total comoving mass density.
The thermodynamics of Kaluza–Klein black hole/bubble chains
(2008-01-01) Kastor, David; Ray, Sourya; Traschen, Jennie
A Killing bubble is a minimal surface that arises as the fixed surface of a spacelike Killing field. We compute the bubble contributions to the Smarr relations and the mass and tension first laws for spacetimes containing both black holes and Killing bubbles. The resulting relations display an interesting interchange symmetry between the properties of black hole horizons and those of KK bubbles. This interchange symmetry reflects the underlying relation between static bubbles and black holes under double analytic continuation of the time and Kaluza–Klein directions. The thermodynamics of bubbles involve a geometrical quantity that we call the bubble surface gravity, which we show has several properties in common with the black hole surface gravity.
Very effective string model?
(1998) Kastor, David; Traschen, Jennie
Additional evidence is presented for a recently proposed effective string model, conjectured to hold throughout the parameter space of the basic 5 dimensional, triply charged black holes, which includes the effects of brane excitations, as well as momentum modes. We compute the low energy spacetime absorption coefficient σ for the scattering of a triply charged scalar field in the near extremal case, and conjecture an exact form for σ. It is shown that this form of σ arises simply from the effective string model. This agreement encompasses both statistical factors coming from the Bose distributions of string excitations and a prefactor which depends on the effective string radius. An interesting feature of the effective string model is that the change in mass of the effective string system in an emission process is not equal to the change in the energies of the effective string excitations. If the model is valid, this may hold clues towards understanding back reaction due to Hawking radiation. A number of weak spots and open questions regarding the model are also noted.
Breaking Cosmic Strings without Monopoles
(1995) Eardley, D; Horowitz, G; Kastor, David; Traschen, Jennie
It is shown that topologically stable cosmic strings can, in fact, appear to end or to break, even in theories without monopoles. This can occur whenever the spatial topology of the universe is nontrivial. For the case of Abelian-Higgs strings, we describe the gauge and scalar field configurations necessary for a string to end on a black hole. We give a lower bound for the rate at which a cosmic string will break via black hole pair production, using an instanton calculation based on the Euclidean C-metric.
Overlapping branes in M-theory
(1999) Gauntlett, Jerome; Kastor, David; Traschen, Jennie
We construct new supersymmetric solutions of D = 11 supergravity describing n orthogonally “overlapping” membranes and fivebranes for n = 2,…,8. Overlapping branes arise after separating intersecting branes in a direction transverse to all of the branes. The solutions, which generalize known intersecting brane solutions, preserve at least 2−n of the supersymmetry. Each pairwise overlap involves a membrane overlapping a membrane in a 0-brane, a fivebrane overlapping a fivebrane in a 3-brane or a membrane overlapping a fivebrane in a string. After reducing n overlapping membranes to obtain n overlapping D-2-branes in D = 10, T-duality generates new overlapping D-brane solutions in type IIA and type IIB string theory. Uplifting certain type IIA solutions leads to the D = 11 solutions. Some of the new solutions reduce to dilaton black holes in D = 4. Additionally, we present a D = 10 solution that describes two D-5-branes overlapping in a string. T-duality then generates further D = 10 solutions and uplifting one of the type IIA solutions gives a new D = 11 solution describing two fivebranes overlapping in a string.