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We adopt in this work the idea that the building blocks of the visible Universe belong to a class of the irreducible representations of the Poincare group of transformations (the "things") endowed with classificatory quantum numbers ("the properties"). After a discussion of this fundamentality, the question of the nature of both "dark" components of the Universe which are deemed necessary, but have not been observed, is analyzed within this context. We broadly discuss the ontology of dark matter/dark energy in relation to the irreducible representations of the Poincar\'e group + quantum numbers, pointing out some cases in which the candidates can be associated to them, and others for which a reclassification of both the dark and visible (ordinary) components would be needed., Comment: To appear in Cosmos and History (2021)

The search for the true ground state of the dense matter remains open since Bodmer, Terazawa and other raised the possibility of stable quarks, boosted by Witten's $strange$ $matter$ hypothesis in 1984. Within this proposal, the strange matter is assumed to be composed of $strange$ quarks in addition to the usual $up$s and $down$s, having an energy per baryon lower than the strangeless counterpart, and even lower than that of nuclear matter. In this sense, neutron stars should actually be strange stars. Later work showed that a paired, symmetric in flavor, color-flavor locked (CFL) state would be preferred to the one without any pairing for a wide range of the parameters (gap $\Delta$, strange quark mass $m_s$, and bag constant B). We use an approximate, yet very accurate, CFL equation of state (EoS) that generalizes the MIT bag model to obtain two families of exact solutions for the static Einstein field equations constructing families anisotropic compact relativistic objects. In this fashion, we provide exact useful solutions directly connected with microphysics., Comment: Submitted to IJMPD on January 2020, 13 pages, 6 figures, anisotropy discussion enlarged and clarified

Based on astrophysical constraints derived from Chandrasekhar's mass limit for white-dwarfs, we study the effects of the model on the parameters of unparticle-inspired gravity, on scales $\Lambda_U > 1 \; TeV$ and $d_U \approx 1$., Comment: 4 pp., 4 Fig., to appear in PRD

We address the spherical accretion of generic fluids onto black holes. We show that, if the black hole metric satisfies certain conditions, in the presence of a test fluid it is possible to derive a fully relativistic prescription for the black hole mass variation. Although the resulting equation may seem obvious due to a form of it appearing as a step in the derivation of the Schwarzschild metric, this geometrical argument is necessary to fix the added degree of freedom one gets for allowing the mass to vary with time. This result has applications on cosmological accretion models and provides a derivation from first principles to serve as a base to the accretion equations already in use in the literature., Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. To appear in Gen. Rel. Grav

The evolution of the mass of a black hole embedded in a universe filled with dark energy and cold dark matter is calculated in a closed form within a test fluid model in a Schwarzschild metric, taking into account the cosmological evolution of both fluids. The result describes exactly how accretion asymptotically switches from the matter-dominated to the Lambda-dominated regime. For early epochs, the black hole mass increases due to dark matter accretion, and on later epochs the increase in mass stops as dark energy accretion takes over. Thus, the unphysical behaviour of previous analyses is improved in this simple exact model., Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in Physics Letters B

We construct and compare a variety of simple models for strange stars, namely, hypothetical self-bound objects made of a cold stable version of the quark-gluon plasma. Exact, quasi-exact and numerical models are examined to find the most economical description for these objects. A simple and successful parametrization of them is given in terms of the central density, and many differences among the models are explicitly shown and discussed., Comment: 20 pp. 15 figures, to appear in IJMPD

Several works in the last few years devoted to measure fundamental probes of contemporary cosmology have suggested the existence of a delocalized dominant component (the "dark energy"), in addition to the several-decade-old evidence for "dark matter" other than ordinary baryons, both assuming the description of gravity to be correct. Either we are faced to accept the ignorance of at least 95 % of the content of the universe or consider a deep change of the conceptual framework to understand the data. Thus, the situation seems to be completely favorable for a Kuhnian paradigm shift in either particle physics or cosmology. We attempt to offer here a brief discussion of these issues from this particular perspective, arguing that the situation qualifies as a textbook Kuhnian anomaly, and offer a tentative identification of some of the actual elements typically associated with the paradigm shift process "in the works" in contemporary science., Comment: 16 pp. 2 .ps figures

The accretion of a phantom fluid with non-zero chemical potential by black holes is discussed with basis on the Generalized Second Law of thermodynamics. For phantom fluids with positive temperature and negative chemical potential we demonstrate that the accretion process is possible, and that the condition guaranteeing the positiveness of the phantom fluid entropy coincides with the one required by Generalized Second Law. In particular, this result provides a complementary confirmation that cosmological phantom fluids do not need to have negative temperatures.

In this work we extend previous work on the evolution of a Primordial Black Hole (PBH) to address the presence of a dark energy component with a super-negative equation of state as a background, investigating the competition between the radiation accretion, the Hawking evaporation and the phantom accretion, the latter two causing a decrease on black hole mass. It is found that there is an instant during the matter-dominated era after which the radiation accretion becomes negligible compared to the phantom accretion. The Hawking evaporation may become important again depending on a mass threshold. The evaporation of PBHs is quite modified at late times by these effects, but only if the Generalized Second Law of thermodynamics is violated., Comment: 6 pp, 2 figs., to appear in GRG

The accretion of phantom fields by black holes within a thermodynamic context is addressed. For a fluid violating the dominant energy condition, case of a phantom fluid, the Euler and Gibbs relations permit two different possibilities for the entropy and temperature: a situation in which the entropy is negative and the temperature is positive or vice-versa. In the former case, if the generalized second law (GSL) is valid, then the accretion process is not allowed whereas in the latter, there is a critical black hole mass below which the accretion process occurs. In a universe dominated by a phantom field, the critical mass drops quite rapidly with the cosmic expansion and black holes are only slightly affected by accretion. All black holes disappear near the big rip, as suggested by previous investigations, if the GSL is violated., Comment: 8 pp., no figures

In this work we revisit the growth of small primordial black holes (PBHs) immersed in a quintessential field and/or radiation to the supermassive black hole (SMBHs) scale. We show the difficulties of scenarios in which such huge growth is possible. For that purpose we evaluated analytical solutions of the differential equations (describing mass evolution) and point out the strong fine tuning for that conclusions. The timescale for growth in a model with a constant quintessence flux is calculated and we show that it is much bigger than the Hubble time.The fractional gain of the mass is further evaluated in other forms, including quintessence and/or radiation. We calculate the cosmological density $\Omega$ due to quintessence necessary to grow BHs to the supermassive range and show it to be much bigger than one. We also describe the set of complete equations analyzing the evolution of the BH+quintessence universe, showing some interesting effects such the quenching of the BH mass growth due to the evolution of the background energy. Additional constraints obtained by using the Holographic Bound are also described. The general equilibrium conditions for evaporating/accreting black holes evolving in a quintessence/radiation universe are discussed in the Appendix., Comment: 21 pp., 2 Figures, To appear in IJMPD

We apply the Generalized Uncertainty Principle (GUP) to the problem of maximum entropy and evaporation/absorption of energy of black holes near the Planck scale. We find within this general approach corrections to the maximum entropy, and indications for quenching of the evaporation because not only the evaporation term goes to a finite limit, but also because absorption of quanta seems to help the balance for black holes in a thermal bath. Then, residual masses around the Planck scale may be the final outcome of primordial black hole evaporation., Comment: Latex file, 11 pp., 1 .eps figure

We analyze the thermodynamical behavior of black holes in closed finite boxes. First the black hole mass evolution is analyzed in an initially empty box. Using the conservation of the energy and the Hawking evaporation flux, we deduce a minimal volume above which one black hole can loss all of its mass to the box, a result which agrees with the previous analysis made by Page. We then obtain analogous results using a box initially containing radiation, allowed to be absorbed by the black hole. The equilibrium times and masses are evaluated and their behavior discussed to highlight some interesting features arising. These results are generalized to $N$ black holes + thermal radiation. Using physically simple arguments, we prove that these black holes achieve the same equilibrium masses (even that the initial masses were different). The entropy of the system is used to obtain the dependence of the equilibrium mass on the box volume, number of black holes and the initial radiation. The equilibrium mass is shown to be proportional to a {\it positive} power law of the effective volume (contrary to naive expectations), a result explained in terms of the detailed features of the system. The effect of the reflection of the radiation on the box walls which comes back into the black hole is explicitly considered. All these results (some of them counter-intuitive) may be useful to formulate alternative problems in thermodynamic courses for graduate and advanced undergraduate students. A handful of them are suggested in the Appendix., Comment: RevTex file, 2 .ps figures. Submitted to AmJPhys

The generalized Second Law of thermodynamics and the Holographic Principle are combined to obtain the maximum mass of black holes formed inside a static spherical box of size $R$ filled with radiation at initial temperature $T_{i}$. The final temperature after the formation of black holes is evaluated, and we show that a critical threshold exists for the radiation to be fully consumed by the process. We next argue that if some form of Holographic Principle holds, upper bounds to the mass density of PBHs formed in the early universe may be obtained. The limits are worked out for inflationary and non-inflationary cosmological models. This method is independent of the known limits based on the background fluxes (from cosmic rays, radiation and other forms of energy) and applies to potentially important epochs of PBH formation, resulting in quite strong constraints to $\Omega_{pbh}$., Comment: Latex file, 2 .ps figures. To appear in Classical and Quantum Gravity

We revisit the problem of PBH mass evolution in the radiation-dominated era. We solve the complete differential equation in the semiclassical regime with absorption and evaporation terms and show that PBHs can gain very little mass, if at all, in this era. Relativistic proper motion of PBHs respect to the CMBR, as a possible loophole in the growth argument, is shown to be unlikely. Finally we demonstrate that PBHs can not remain in thermodynamical equilibrium with the ambient radiation, and therefore initially non-evaporating black holes must enter the evaporating regime, supporting several efforts to look for observational signatures., Comment: 9 pages, 1 .eps figure. submitted to GRG

In this letter we suggest a scenario for simultaneous emission of gravitational-wave and $\gamma$-ray bursts (GRBs) from soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs). we argue that both of the radiations can be generated by a super-Eddington accreting neutron stars in X-ray binaries. In this model a supercritical accretion transient takes back onto the remnant star the disk leftover by the hydrodynamic instability phase of a low magnetized, rapidly rotating neutron star in a X-ray binary system. We estimate the rise timescale $\Delta t_c = 0.21 ms$, minimum mass accretion rate needed to trigger the $\gamma$-ray emission, $\dot{M}_\lambda = 4.5 \times 10^{28} g$, and its effective associated temperature $T_{eff} = 740 keV$, and the timescale for repeating a burst of $\gamma$-rays $\Delta \tau_R = 11.3 yr$. Altogether, we find the associated GW amplitude and frequency to be $h_c = 2.7 \times 10^{-23}/{(Hz)}^{1/2}$ and $f_{gw} = 966 Hz$, for a source distance $\sim 55 kpc$. Detectability of the pulses by t he forthcoming GW anntenas is discussed and found likely., Comment: 5 pages, [prl]{revtex}, 1 PS figure included. To appear in Physical Review Letters