Astrophysical effects of General

Relativity

Presented by: Joshua Osborne

General Relativity 2021

What Will Be Covered?

• Spin of Black Holes from accretion properties

• White dwarfs
• Modified General Relativity
Why look at Spin of Black Holes?

• Spin has been found to play an important role in the relativistic

process of accretion-outflow/jet systems

• Accretion flows are related to many other relativistic processes

• quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) in compact sources
• Supernovae
• gamma-ray bursts
Some basics

Kerr-Newman metric which in standard Boyer-Lindquist coordinates

• Kerr metric (rotating, uncharged black hole): Q= 0

• Schwarzschild metric (uncharged and non-rotating black hole): a=Q=0
• Reissner-Nordström metric (charged, non-rotating black hole) : a=0
Accretion Properties and Spin

How to find accretion properties? Method of measuring spin

• fitting the thermal continuum from
accretion disks
• inner disk reflection modeling
• modeling the QPOs
• Novikov and Thorne’s method of relating
 • P = pressure Luminosity of accretion disk to Flux
• ρ = mass density
• U = internal energy density of
the matter
• = the 4-velocity

  𝐿 𝐸𝑑𝑑
Ṁ 𝐸𝑑𝑑 = 2
η𝑐
Predicted spin

• In the previous slide we assumed the overall charge, Q in the Kerr-

Newman metric, was zero (Kerr metric).

  In natural units (G=M=c=1)

SNeIa and white dwarfs
SNeIa and white dwarfs
2011 Nobel Prize in Physics
The discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe

  Supernovae projects Riess et al., 1998, ApJ

Perlmutter, 1999, ApJ

Brian Schmidt

Saul Perlmutter Adam Riess

  Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs)
Problems With White Dwarfs In the SNeIa Picture

 
• There appear to be supernovae which are over-luminous and under-luminous
• Those which are under-luminous are likely due to white dwarfs which are about
• Over-luminous supernovae are believed to be due to super-Chandrasekhar white
dwarfs (2.1 − 2.8
• Thought to have been due to highly magnetized white dwarfs

Still problems!

• Magnetized white dwarfs don’t explain under-luminous supernovae

• a large array of models is required to explain triggering of thermonuclear explosions
in white dwarfs

Solution?
Modify gravity!
f(R) modified gravity theory

• Goal of this theory was to generalize Einstein's general relativity

f(R) for the White Dwarf
Starobinsky model:

A perturbative approach is then taken

Time component:

Radial component:
Results

•  After applying the EoS and initial conditions it was found that…
Questions?