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There have been various interpretations of Hawking radiation proposed based on the perturbative approach, and all have confirmed Hawking's original finding. One major conceptual challenge of Hawking evaporation is the associated black hole information loss paradox, which remains unresolved. A key factor to the issue is the end-stage of the black hole evaporation. Unfortunately by then the evaporation process becomes non-perturbative. Aspired to provide a tool for the eventual solution to this problem, here we introduce a new interpretation of Hawking radiation as the tunneling of instantons. We study instantons of a massless scalar field in Einstein gravity. We consider a complex-valued instanton that connects an initial pure black hole state to a black hole with a scalar field that represents the Hawking radiation at future null infinity, where its action depends only on the areal entropy difference. By comparing it with several independent approaches to Hawking radiation in the perturbative limit, we conclude that Hawking radiation may indeed be described by a family of instantons. Since the instanton approach can describe non-perturbative processes, we hope that our new interpretation and holistic method may shed lights on the information loss problem., 17 pages, 7 figures

We find the quantum power emitted and distribution in $3+1$-dimensions of relativistic acceleration radiation using a single perfectly reflecting mirror via Lorentz invariance demonstrating close analogies to point charge radiation in classical electrodynamics., 6 pages, 2 figures, Appendix

Quasinormal modes of perturbed black holes have recently gained much interest because of their tight relations with the gravitational wave signals emitted during the post-merger phase of a binary black hole coalescence. One of the intriguing features of these modes is that they respect the no-hair theorem, and hence, they can be used to test black hole space-times and the underlying gravitational theory. In this paper, we exhibit three different aspects of how black hole quasinormal modes could be altered in theories beyond Einstein general relativity. These aspects are the direct alterations of quasinormal modes spectra as compared with those in general relativity, the violation of the geometric correspondence between the high-frequency quasinormal modes and the photon geodesics around the black hole, and the breaking of the isospectrality between the axial and polar gravitational perturbations. Several examples will be provided in each individual case. The prospects and possible challenges associated with future observations will be also discussed., Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures

One interesting proposal to solve the black hole information loss paradox without modifying either general relativity or quantum field theory, is the soft hair, a diffeomorphism charge that records the anisotropic radiation in the asymptotic region. This proposal, however, has been challenged, given that away from the source the soft hair behaves as a coordinate transformation that forms an Abelian group, thus unable to store any information. To maintain the spirit of the soft hair but circumvent these obstacles, we consider Hawking radiation as a probe sensitive to the entire history of the black hole evaporation, where the soft hairs on the horizon are induced by the absorption of a null anisotropic flow, generalizing the shock wave considered in [1, 2]. To do so we introduce two different time-dependent extensions of the diffeomorphism associated with the soft hair, where one is the backreaction of the anisotropic null flow, and the other is a coordinate transformation that produces the Unruh effect and a Doppler shift to the Hawking spectrum. Together, they form an exact BMS charge generator on the entire manifold that allows the nonperturbative analysis of the black hole horizon, whose surface gravity, i.e. the Hawking temperature, is found to be modified. The modification depends on an exponential average of the anisotropy of the null flow with a decay rate of 4M, suggesting the emergence of a new 2-D degree of freedom on the horizon, which could be a way out of the information loss paradox.

Hawking's seminal discovery of black hole evaporation was based on the semi-classical, perturbative method. Whether black hole evaporation may result in the loss of information remains undetermined. The solution to this paradox would most likely rely on the knowledge of the end-life of the evaporation, which evidently must be in the non-perturbative regime. Here we reinterpret the Hawking radiation as the tunneling of instantons, which is inherently non-perturbative. For definitiveness, we invoke the picture of shell-anti-shell pair production and show that it is equivalent to that of instanton tunneling. We find that such a shell pair production picture can help to elucidate firewalls and ER=EPR conjectures that attempt to solve the information paradox, and may be able to address the end-life issue toward an ultimate resolution., 5 pages, 2 figures

In the scope of black hole spectroscopy, several attempts have been made in the past decades in order to test black holes or gravitational theories via black hole quasinormal modes. In the eikonal approximation, the quasinormal modes are generically associated with the photon ring of the black hole. This correspondence is valid for most cases in general relativity, but may not be true in other theories of gravity. In this paper, we consider the generalized energy-momentum squared gravity in which matter fields are non-minimally coupled to geometry. We investigate the axial perturbations of the charged black holes in this model, without assuming any explicit expression of the action functional. After obtaining the modified Klein-Gordon equation and the modified Maxwell equations, we perturb the gravitational equations and the modified Maxwell equations to derive the coupled master equations of the axial perturbations. In the presence of the non-minimal coupling between matter and geometry, the correspondence between the eikonal quasinormal modes and the photon ring is not satisfied in general. Also, the two coupled fields of the axial perturbations are found to propagate independently and they do not share the same quasinormal frequencies in the eikonal limit., 11 pages. Updated to match the published version

It has been proposed that laser-induced relativistic plasma mirror can accelerate if the plasma has a properly tailored density profile. Such accelerating plasma mirrors can serve as analog black holes to investigate Hawking evaporation and the associated information loss paradox. Here we reexamine the underlying dynamics of mirror motion in a graded-density plasma to provide an explicit trajectory as a function of the plasma density and its gradient. Specifically, a decreasing plasma density profile (down-ramp) along the direction of laser propagation would in general accelerate the mirror. In particular, a constant-plus-exponential density profile would generate the Davies-Fulling trajectory with a well-defined analog Hawking temperature, which is sensitive to the plasma density gradient but not to the density itself. We show that without invoking nano-fabricated thin-films, a much lower density gas target at, for example, $\sim 1\times 10^{17}{\rm cm}^{-3}$, would be able to induce an analog Hawking temperature, $k_{_B}T_{_H}\sim 6.6 \times 10^{-2}{\rm eV}$, in the far-infrared region. We hope that this would help to better realize the experiment proposed by Chen and Mourou., 7 pages

We show that a generalized version of the holographic principle can be derived from the Hamiltonian description of information flow within a quantum system that maintains a separable state. We then show that this generalized holographic principle entails a general principle of gauge invariance. When this is realized in an ambient Lorentzian space-time, gauge invariance under the Poincare group is immediately achieved. We apply this pathway to retrieve the action of gravity. The latter is cast a la Wilczek through a similar formulation derived by MacDowell and Mansouri, which involves the representation theory of the Lie groups SO(3,2) and SO(4,1)., 26 pages, 1 figure

The rapid advancement of gravitational wave astronomy in recent years has paved the way for the burgeoning development of black hole spectroscopy, which enhances the possibility of testing black holes by their quasinormal modes (QNMs). In this paper, the axial gravitational perturbations and the QNM frequencies of black holes in the hybrid metric-Palatini gravity (HMPG) are investigated. The HMPG theory is characterized by a dynamical scalar degree of freedom and is able to explain the late-time accelerating expansion of the universe without introducing any \textit{ad hoc} screening mechanism to preserve the dynamics at the Solar System scale. We obtain the master equation governing the axial gravitational perturbations of the HMPG black holes and calculate the QNM frequencies. Moreover, in the scrutiny of the black holes and their QNMs, we take into account the constraints on the model parameters based on the post-Newtonian analysis, and show how the QNM frequencies of the HMPG black holes would be altered in the observationally consistent range of parameter space., Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures. Updated to match the published version

In this paper, we investigate complex-valued Euclidean wormholes in the Starobinsky inflation. Due to the properties of the concave inflaton potential, the classicality condition at both ends of the wormhole can be satisfied, as long as the initial condition of the inflaton field is such that it is located sufficiently close to the hilltop. We compare the probabilities of classicalized wormholes with the Hartle-Hawking compact instantons and conclude that the Euclidean wormholes are probabilistically preferred than compact instantons, if the inflation lasts more than 50 e-foldings. Our result assumes that the Euclidean path integral is the correct effective description of quantum gravity. This opens a new window for various future investigations that can be either confirmed or refuted by future experiments., 14 pages, 8 figures

It is believed that in the near future, gravitational wave detections will become a promising tool not only to test gravity theories, but also to probe extremely curved spacetime regions in our universe, such as the surroundings of black holes. In this paper, we investigate the quasinormal modes (QNMs) of the axial gravitational perturbations of a class of non-singular black holes conformally related to the Schwarzschild black hole. These non-singular black holes can be regarded as the vacuum solution of a family of conformal gravity theories which are invariant under conformal transformations. After conformal symmetry is broken, these black holes produce observational signatures different from those of the Schwarzschild black hole, such as their QNM frequencies. We assume that the spacetime is described by the Einstein equation with the effective energy momentum tensor of an anisotropic fluid. The master equation describing the QNMs is derived, and the QNM frequencies are evaluated with the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) method up to the 6th order. As expected, the QNM spectra of these non-singular black holes deviate from those of the Schwarzschild black hole, indicating the possibility of testing these black hole solutions with the help of future gravitational wave detections., 11 pages, 5 figures

For any non-rotating effective quantum (uncharged) black hole model to be viable, its asymptotic structure of spacetime should reduce to that of a Schwarzschild black hole. After examining the asymptotic structure of quantum black holes proposed in Ashtekar et al., (2018), we find that the solution is actually not asymptotically flat. Departure from asymptotically flat spacetime is a direct consequence of the quantum parameters included in the model. Moreover, since the property of asymptotic flatness needs to be explicitly invoked, for instance, in relating the black hole and the white hole masses, it thereby raises a serious concern about the consistency of this model in view of the classical limit1., Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure. Details included. Updated to match the published version

Motivated by the lack of rotating solutions sourced by matter in General Relativity as well as in modified gravity theories, we extend a recently discovered exact rotating solution of the minimal Einstein-scalar theory to its counterpart in Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld gravity coupled to a Born-Infeld scalar field. This is accomplished with the implementation of a well-developed mapping between solutions of Ricci-Based Palatini theories of gravity and General Relativity. The new solution is parametrized by the scalar charge and the Born-Infeld coupling constant apart from the mass and spin of the compact object. Compared to the spacetime prior to the mapping, we find that the high-energy modifications at the Born-Infeld scale are able to suppress but not remove the curvature divergence of the original naked null singularity. Depending on the sign of the Born-Infeld coupling constant, these modifications may even give rise to an additional timelike singularity exterior to the null one. In spite of that, both of the naked singularities before and after the mapping are capable of casting shadows, and as a consequence of the mapping relation, their shadows turn out to be identical as seen by a distant observer on the equatorial plane. Even though the scalar field induces a certain oblateness to the appearance of the shadow with its left and right endpoints held fixed, the closedness condition for the shadow contour sets a small upper bound on the absolute value of the scalar charge, which leads to observational features of the shadow closely resembling those of a Kerr black hole., Comment: 33 pages, 4 figures; reference added, updated to match the published version

The interior of a static Schwarzschild metric can be written in terms of two functions, similar to some models of anisotropic cosmology. With a suitable choice of canonical variables, we solve the Wheeler-DeWitt equation (WDW) inside the horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole. By imposing classicality near the horizon, and requiring boundedness of the wave function, we get a rather generic solution of the WDW equation, whose steepest-descent solution, i.e., the ridge of the wave function, coincides nicely with the classical trajectory. However, there is an ambiguity in defining the arrow of time which leads to two possible interpretations - (i) if there is only one arrow of time, one can infer that the steepest-descent of the wave function follows the classical trajectory throughout: coming from the event horizon and going all the way down to the singularity, while (ii) if there are two different arrows of time in two separate regimes, it can be inferred that the steepest-descent of the wave function comes inwards from the event horizon in one region while it moves outwards from the singularity in the other region, and there exists an annihilation process of these two parts of the wave function inside the horizon. Adopting the second interpretation could shed light on the information loss paradox: as time goes on, probabilities for histories that include black holes and singularities decay to zero and eventually only trivial geometries dominate., Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures

Forty years after the discovery of Hawking radiation, its exact nature remains elusive. If Hawking radiation does not carry any information out from the ever shrinking black hole, it seems that unitarity is violated once the black hole completely evaporates. On the other hand, attempts to recover information via quantum entanglement lead to the firewall controversy. Amid the confusions, the possibility that black hole evaporation stops with a "remnant" has remained unpopular and is often dismissed due to some "undesired properties" of such an object. Nevertheless, as in any scientific debate, the pros and cons of any proposal must be carefully scrutinized. We fill in the void of the literature by providing a timely review of various types of black hole remnants, and provide some new thoughts regarding the challenges that black hole remnants face in the context of the information loss paradox and its latest incarnation, namely the firewall controversy. The importance of understanding the role of curvature singularity is also emphasized, after all there remains a possibility that the singularity cannot be cured even by quantum gravity. In this context a black hole remnant conveniently serves as a cosmic censor. We conclude that a remnant remains a possible end state of Hawking evaporation, and if it contains large interior geometry, may help to ameliorate the information loss paradox and the firewall controversy. We hope that this will raise some interests in the community to investigate remnants more critically but also more thoroughly., A review paper with some new thoughts; v3: improved discussions; published version

We investigate the interior structure, perturbations, and the associated quasinormal modes of a quantum black hole model recently proposed by Bodendorfer, Mele, and M\"unch (BMM). Within the framework of loop quantum gravity, the quantum parameters in the BMM model are introduced through polymerization, consequently replacing the Schwarzschild singularity with a spacelike transition surface. By treating the quantum geometry corrections as an `effective' matter contribution, we first prove the violation of energy conditions (in particular the null energy condition) near the transition surface and then investigate the required junction conditions on it. In addition, we study the quasinormal modes of massless scalar field perturbations, electromagnetic perturbations, and axial gravitational perturbations in this effective model. As expected, the quasinormal spectra deviate from their classical counterparts in the presence of quantum corrections. Interestingly, we find that the quasinormal frequencies of perturbations with different spins share the same qualitative tendency with respect to the change of the quantum parameters in this model., Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures. Updated to match the published version

The Planck data on cosmic microwave background indicates that the Starobinsky-type model with concave inflation potential is favored over the convex-type chaotic inflation. Is there any reason for that? Here we argue that if our universe began with a Euclidean wormhole, then the Starobinsky-type inflation is probabilistically favored. It is known that for a more generic choice of parameters than that originally assumed by Hartle and Hawking, the Hartle-Hawking wave function is dominated by Euclidean wormholes, which can be interpreted as the creation of two classical universes from nothing. We show that only one end of the wormhole can be classicalized for a convex potential, while both ends can be classicalized for a concave potential. The latter is therefore more probable., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures

The O(4)-symmetric regular instanton solutions are studied within the framework of the Eddington-inspired-Born-Infeld gravity (EiBI). We find that the behavior of the solution would deviate from that in Einstein gravity when the kinetic energy of the scalar field is sufficiently large. The tunneling probability is calculated numerically in different parameter space. We find that the tunneling probability would increase with the Born-Infeld coupling constant, which is assumed to be positive in this paper. Furthermore, we discover a neck feature in the physical instanton solutions when the kinetic energy of the scalar field is sufficiently large. This feature can be interpreted as a Lorentzian time-like wormhole geometry formed during the bubble materialization., 16 pages, 5 figures

The scrutiny of black hole perturbations and its application to testing gravity theories have been a very crucial frontier in modern physics. In this paper we study the quasi-normal modes (QNM) of massless scalar perturbations for various charged black holes in the Palatini-type theories of gravity. Specifically, we consider the Palatini $f(R)$ theory coupled with Born-Infeld nonlinear electrodynamics and the Eddington-inspired-Born-Infeld gravity (EiBI) coupled with Maxwell electromagnetic fields. Special attention is paid to Einstein-Born-Infeld black holes, EiBI charged black holes and Born-Infeld charged black holes within $R\pm R^2$ gravity. These charged black holes are shown to be stable and their quasi-normal frequencies, including the frequencies in the eikonal limit, are calculated by using the WKB method up to the 6th order. We compare the results with the Reissner-Nordstr\"om charged black hole and prove that both the changes in the gravity sector and the matter sector of the action alter the QNM spectra., Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, revised version, accepted for publication in PRD

The possibility of testing gravity theories with the help of gravitational wave detections has become an interesting arena of recent research. In this paper, we follow this direction by investigating the quasinormal modes (QNMs) of the axial perturbations for charged black holes in the Palatini-type theories of gravity, specifically ($i$) the Palatini $f(R)$ gravity coupled with Born-Infeld nonlinear electrodynamics and ($ii$) the Eddington-inspired-Born-Infeld gravity (EiBI) coupled with Maxwell electromagnetic fields. The coupled master equations describing perturbations of charged black holes in these theories are obtained with the tetrad formalism. By using the Wentzel-Kramers- Brillouin (WKB) method up to 6th order, we calculate the QNM frequencies of the EiBI charged black holes, the Einstein-Born-Infeld black holes, and the Born-Infeld charged black holes within the Palatini $R+\alpha R^2$ gravity. The QNM spectra of these black holes would deviate from those of the Reissner-Nordstr\"om black hole. In addition, we study the QNMs in the eikonal limit and find that for the axial perturbations of the EiBI charged black holes, the link between the eikonal QNMs and the unstable null circular orbit around the black hole is violated., Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures

The vacuum, static, and spherically symmetric solutions in the mimetic Born-Infeld gravity are studied. The mimetic Born-Infeld gravity is a reformulation of the Eddington-inspired-Born-Infeld (EiBI) model under the mimetic approach. Due to the mimetic field, the theory contains non-trivial vacuum solutions different from those in Einstein gravity. We find that with the existence of the mimetic field, the spacelike singularity inside a Schwarzschild black hole could be altered to a lightlike singularity, even though the curvature invariants still diverge at the singularity. Furthermore, in this case, the maximal proper time for a timelike radially-infalling observer to reach the singularity is found to be infinite., 9 pages, 5 figures, RevTex4

We investigate thermal activation of thin-shells around anti-de Sitter black holes. Under the thin-shell approximation, we extensively study the parameter region that allows a bubble nucleation bounded by a thin-shell out of a thermal bath. We show that in general if one fixes the temperature outside the shell, one needs to consider the presence of a conical deficit inside the shell in the Euclidean manifold, due to the lack of solutions with a smooth manifold. We show that for a given set of theoretical parameters, i.e., vacuum and shell energy density, there is a finite range of black hole masses that allow this transition. Most interestingly, one of them describes the complete evaporation of the initial black hole., Comment: published version

A class of dynamical dark energy models is constructed through an extended version of fermion fields corresponding to phantom dark ghost spinors, which are spin one half with mass dimension one. We find that if these spinors interact with torsion fields in a homogeneous and isotropic universe, then it does not imply any future dark energy singularity or any abrupt event, though the fermion has a negative kinetic energy. In fact, the equation of state of this dark energy model will asymptotically approach the value $w=-1$ from above without crossing the phantom divide and inducing therefore a de Sitter state. Consequently, we expect the model to be stable because no real phantom fields will be created. At late time, the torsion fields will vanish as the corresponding phantom dark ghost spinors dilute. As would be expected, intuitively, this result is unaffected by the presence of cold dark matter although the proof is not as straightforward as in general relativity., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures. A heavily revised version without changes on the physical content. Version to appear in EPJC

The question of whether Hawking evaporation violates unitarity, and therefore results in the loss of information, remains unresolved since Hawking's seminal discovery. So far the investigations remain mostly theoretical since it is almost impossible to settle this paradox through direct astrophysical black hole observations. Here we point out that relativistic plasma mirrors can be accelerated drastically and stopped abruptly by impinging ultra intense x-ray pulses on solid plasma targets with a density gradient. This is analogous to the late time evolution of black hole Hawking evaporation. A conception of such an experiment is proposed and a self-consistent set of physical parameters is presented. Critical issues such as black hole unitarity may be addressed through the measurement of the entanglement between the Hawking radiation and their partner modes., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

By far cosmology is one of the most exciting subject to study, even more so with the current bulk of observations we have at hand. These observations might indicate different kinds of doomsdays, if dark energy follows certain patterns. Two of these doomsdays are the Little Rip (LR) and Little Sibling of the Big Rip (LSBR). In this work, aside from proving the unavoidability of the LR and LSBR in the Eddington-inspired-Born-Infeld (EiBI) scenario, we carry out a quantum analysis of the EiBI theory with a matter field, which, from a classical point of view would inevitably lead to a universe that ends with either LR or LSBR. Based on a modified Wheeler-DeWitt equation, we demonstrate that such fatal endings seems to be avoidable., Comment: 6 pages. A more careful and detailed analysis of the classical and quantum Hamiltonian included. Physical results unchanged. Version accepted in PLB

The lack of correlations at the long-wavelength scales of the cosmic microwave background spectrum is a long-standing puzzle and it persists in the latest Planck data. By considering the Hartle-Hawking no-boundary wave function as the initial condition of the inflationary universe, we propose that the power suppression can be the consequence of a massive inflaton, whose initial vacuum is the Euclidean instanton in a compact manifold. We calculate the primordial power spectrum of the perturbations, and find that as long as the scalar field is moderately massive, the power spectrum is suppressed at the long-wavelength scales., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures; journal version

We investigate the entanglement entropy and the information flow of two-dimensional moving mirrors. Here we point out that various mirror trajectories can help to mimic different candidate resolutions to the information loss paradox following the semi-classical quantum field theory: (i) a suddenly stopping mirror corresponds to the assertion that all information is attached to the last burst, (ii) a slowly stopping mirror corresponds to the assertion that thermal Hawking radiation carries information, and (iii) a long propagating mirror corresponds to the remnant scenario. Based on such analogy, we find that the last burst of a black hole cannot contain enough information, while slowly emitting radiation can restore unitarity. For all cases, there is an apparent inconsistency between the picture based on quantum entanglements and that based on the semi-classical quantum field theory. Based on the quantum entanglement theory, a stopping mirror will generate a firewall-like violent emission which is in conflict with notions based on the semi-classical quantum field theory., Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures

As an attempt to solve the black hole information loss paradox, recently there has been the suggestion that, due to semi-classical effects, a pre-Hawking radiation must exist during the gravitational collapse of matter, which in turn prevents the apparent horizon from forming. Assuming the pre-Hawking radiation does exist, here we argue the opposite. First we note that the stress energy tensor near the horizon for the pre-Hawking radiation is far too small to do anything to the motion of a collapsing shell. Thus the shell will always cross the apparent horizon within a finite proper time. Moreovall, the amount of energy that can be radiated must be less than half of the total initial energy (if the particle starts at rest at infinity) before the shell becomes a null shell and cannot radiate any more without becoming tachyonic. We conclude that for any gravitational collapsing process within Einstein gravity and semi-classical quantum field theory, the formation of the apparent horizon is inevitable. Pre-Hawking radiation is therefore not a valid solution to the information paradox., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures

The Eddington-inspired-Born-Infeld (EiBI) model is reformulated within the mimetic approach. In the presence of a mimetic field, the model contains non-trivial vacuum solutions which could be free of spacetime singularity because of the Born-Infeld nature of the theory. We study a realistic primordial vacuum universe and prove the existence of regular solutions, such as primordial inflationary solutions of de Sitter type or bouncing solutions. Besides, the linear instabilities present in the EiBI model are found to be avoidable for some interesting bouncing solutions in which the physical metric as well as the auxiliary metric are regular at the background level., Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures and 1 table. References added. Version accepted in JCAP

We re-examine the quantum geometrodynamical approach within the Eddington-inspired-Born-Infeld theory of gravity, which was first proposed in our previous work [1]. A thorough analysis of the classical Hamiltonian with constraints is carried and the correctness and self-consistency of the modified Wheeler-DeWitt equation (WDW) is studied. We find that based on the newly obtained WDW equation derived with the use of the Dirac brackets, the conclusion reached in Ref.[1] can be corroborated. The big rip singularity present in the classical theory, and induced by a phantom perfect fluid, is expected to be avoided when quantum effects encoded on the modified WDW equation are taken into account., Comment: 14 pages

In this paper, we provide a counter-example to the ER=EPR conjecture. In an anti-de Sitter space, we construct a pair of maximally entangled but separated black holes. Due to the vacuum decay of the anti-de Sitter background toward a deeper vacuum, these two parts can be trapped by bubbles. If these bubbles are reasonably large, then within the scrambling time, there should appear an Einstein-Rosen bridge between the two black holes. Now by tracing more details on the bubble dynamics, one can identify parameters such that one of the two bubbles either monotonically shrinks or expands. Because of the change of vacuum energy, one side of the black hole would evaporate completely. Due to the shrinking of the apparent horizon, a signal of one side of the Einstein-Rosen bridge can be viewed from the opposite side. We analytically and numerically demonstrate that within a reasonable semi-classical parameter regime, such process can happen. Bubbles are a non-perturbative effect, which is the crucial reason that allows the transmission of information between the two black holes through the Einstein-Rosen bridge, even though the probability is highly suppressed. Therefore, the ER=EPR conjecture cannot be generic in its present form and its validity maybe restricted., 20 pages, 9 figures

There exist two interpretations of instantons in the literature. The first interpretation regards instanton as divider between the initial and final hypersurfaces. The Coleman-De Luccia instanton is one such an example. The second interpretation, proposed by Brown and Weinberg, considers instanton as connector between the initial and final hypersurfaces. In this proceedings, we try to suitably and intuitively argue that these two interpretations are complementary to each other under certain conditions. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the decay rate obtained from the Euclidean treatment and the Hamiltonian treatment both are consistent with each other, which may help to dissolve some concerns about the validity of regularization technique employed in the treatment of the cusp singularity of instantons. Based on these, we argue that instantons can be a sensible tool to address the information loss problem., The 2nd LeCosPA Symposium: Everything about Gravity, Celebrating the Centenary of Einstein's General Relativity. Talk given by Yao-Chieh Hu, on December 17, 2015, Taipei, Taiwan. 9 pages

In this paper, a modified Eddington-inspired-Born-Infeld (EiBI) theory with a pure trace term $g_{\mu\nu}R$ being added to the determinantal action is analysed from a cosmological point of view. It corresponds to the most general action constructed from a rank two tensor that contains up to first order terms in curvature. This term can equally be seen as a conformal factor multiplying the metric $g_{\mu\nu}$. This very interesting type of amendment has not been considered within the Palatini formalism despite the large amount of works on the Born-Infeld-inspired theory of gravity. This model can provide smooth bouncing solutions which were not allowed in the EiBI model for the same EiBI coupling. Most interestingly, for a radiation filled universe there are some regions of the parameter space that can naturally lead to a de Sitter inflationary stage without the need of any exotic matter field. Finally, in this model we discover a new type of cosmic "quasi-sudden" singularity, where the cosmic time derivative of the Hubble rate becomes very large but finite at a finite cosmic time., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, RevTex4-1. References added and discussion extended. Version accepted in EPJC

There is an apparent power deficit relative to the $��$CDM prediction of the CMB spectrum at large scales, which, though not yet statistically significant, persists from WMAP to Planck data. Proposals that invoke some form of initial condition for the inflation have been made to address this apparent power suppression, albeit with conflicting conclusions. By studying the curvature perturbations of a scalar field in the FLRW universe parameterized by the equation of state parameter $w$, we find that the large-scale spectrum at the end of inflation reflects the super-horizon spectrum of the initial state. The large-scale spectrum is suppressed if the universe begins with the adiabatic vacuum in a super-inflation ($w < -1$) or positive-pressure ($w > 0$) era. In the latter case, there is however no causal mechanism to establish the initial adiabatic vacuum. On the other hand, as long as the universe begins with the adiabatic vacuum in an era with $-1 < w < 0$, even if there exists an intermediate positive-pressure era, the large-scale spectrum would be enhanced rather than suppressed. We further calculate the spectrum of a two-stage inflation model with a two-field potential and show that the result agrees with that obtained from the ad hoc single-field analysis., 17 pages, 17 figures; revised to address referee's comment, added subsection III D and appendix with accompanying figures; matching coefficients in subsection III D and appendix corrected, other minor corrections and improvement, published in PRD

We investigate Euclidean wormholes in Einstein gravity with a massless scalar field in de Sitter space. Euclidean wormholes are possible due to the analytic continuation of the time as well as complexification of fields, where we need to impose the classicality after the Wick-rotation to the Lorentzian signatures. For some parameters, wormholes are preferred than Hawking-Moss instantons, and hence wormholes can be more fundamental than Hawking-Moss type instantons. Euclidean wormholes can be interpreted in three ways: (1) classical big bounce, (2) either tunneling from a small to a large universe or a creation of a collapsing and an expanding universe from nothing, and (3) either a transition from a contracting to a bouncing phase or a creation of two expanding universes from nothing. These various interpretations shed some light on challenges of singularities. In addition, these will help to understand tensions between various kinds of quantum gravity theories., Comment: 23 pages, 12 figures

Motivated by both concepts of R.J. Adler's recent work on utilizing Clifford algebra as the linear line element $ds = \left\langle \gamma_\mu \right\rangle dX^\mu $, and the fermionization of the cylindrical worldsheet Polyakov action, we introduce a new type of spacetime quantization that is fully covariant. The theory is based on the reinterpretation of Adler's linear line element as $ds = \gamma_\mu \left\langle \lambda \gamma ^\mu \right\rangle$, where $\lambda$ is the characteristic length of the theory. We name this new operator as "spacetime interval operator", and argue that it can be regarded as a natural extension to the one-forms in the $U(\mathfrak{s}u(2))$ non-commutative geometry. By treating Fourier momentum as the particle momentum, the generalized uncertainty principle of the $U(\mathfrak{s}u(2))$ non-commutative geometry, as an approximation to the generalized uncertainty principle of our theory, is derived, and is shown to have a lowest order correction term of the order $p^2$ similar to that of Snyder's. The holography nature of the theory is demonstrated, and the predicted fuzziness of the geodesic is shown to be much smaller than conceivable astrophysical bounds., Comment: 9 pages

In the path integral approach, one has to sum over all histories that start from the same initial condition in order to obtain the final condition as a superposition of histories. Applying this into black hole dynamics, we consider stable and unstable stationary bubbles as a reasonable and regular initial condition. We find examples where the bubble can either form a black hole or tunnel toward a trivial geometry, i.e., with no singularity nor event horizon. We investigate the dynamics and tunneling channels of true vacuum bubbles for various tensions. In particular, in line with the idea of superposition of geometries, we build a classically stable stationary thin-shell solution in a Minkowski background where its fate is probabilistically given by non-perturbative effects. Since there exists a tunneling channel toward a trivial geometry in the entire path integral, the entire information is encoded in the wave function. This demonstrates that the unitarity is preserved and there is no loss of information when viewed from the entire wave function of the universe, whereas a semi-classical observer, who can see only a definitive geometry, would find an effective loss of information. This may provide a resolution to the information loss dilemma., 18 pages, 9 figures

In the firewall proposal, it is assumed that the firewall lies near the event horizon and should not be observable except by infalling observers, who are presumably terminated at the firewall. However, if the firewall is located near where the horizon would have been, based on the spacetime evolution up to that time, later quantum fluctuations of the Hawking emission rate can cause the "teleological" event horizon to have migrated to the inside of the firewall location, rendering the firewall naked. In principle, the firewall can be arbitrarily far outside the horizon. This casts doubt about the notion that firewalls are the "most conservative" solution to the information loss paradox., Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, Title changed to agree with the version accepted by Phys. Rev. Lett. (April 2016)

Supernovae observations strongly support the presence of a cosmological constant, but its value, which we will call apparent, is normally determined assuming that the universe can be accurately described by a homogeneous model. Even in the presence of a cosmological constant we cannot exclude nevertheless the presence of a small local inhomogeneity which could affect the apparent value of the cosmological constant. Neglecting the presence of the inhomogeneity can in fact introduce a systematic misinterpretation of cosmological data, leading to the distinction between an apparent and the true value of the cosmological constant. But is such a difference distinguishable? Recently we set out to model the local inhomogeneity with a {\Lambda}LTB solution and computed the relation between the apparent and the true value of the cosmological constant. In this essay we reproduce the essence of our model with the emphasis on its physical implications., Comment: Some parts need to be revised

We propose a solution to the longstanding cosmological constant (CC) problem which is based on the fusion of two existing concepts. The first is the suggestion that the proper description of classical gravitational effects is the gauge theory of gravity in which the connection instead of the metric acts as the dynamical variable. The resulting field equation does not then contain the CC term. This removes the connection between the CC and the quantum vacuum energy, and therefore addresses the {\it old} CC problem of why quantum vacuum energy does not gravitate. The CC-equivalent in this approach arises from the constant of integration when reducing the field equation to the Einstein equation. The second is the assumption that the universe obeys de Sitter symmetry, with the observed accelerating expansion as its manifestation. We combine these ideas and identify the constant of integration with the inverse-square of the radius of curvature of the de Sitter space. The origin of dark energy (DE) is therefore associated with the inherent spacetime geometry, with the smallness of DE protected by symmetry. This addresses the {\it new} CC problem, or the DE puzzle. This approach, however, faces major challenges from quantum considerations. These are the ghost problem associated with higher order gravity theories and the quantum instability of the de Sitter spacetime. We discuss their possible remedies., Comment: 8 pages

If the Hartle-Hawking wave function is the correct boundary condition of our universe, the history of our universe will be well approximated by an instanton. Although this instanton should be classicalized at infinity, as long as we are observing a process of each history, we may detect a non-classicalized part of field combinations. When we apply it to a dark energy model, this non-classicalized part of fields can be well embedded to a quintessence and a phantom model, i.e., a quintom model. Because of the property of complexified instantons, the phantomness will be naturally free from a big rip singularity. This phantomness does not cause perturbative instabilities, as it is an effect emergent from the entire wave function. Our work may thus provide a theoretical basis for the quintom models, whose equation of state (EoS) can cross the cosmological constant boundary (CCB) phenomenologically., 20 pages, 7 figures

The Eddington-inspired-Born-Infeld scenario (EiBI) can prevent the Big Bang singularity for a matter content whose equation of state is constant and positive. In a recent paper we showed that, on the contrary, it is impossible to smooth a big rip in the EiBI setup. In fact the situations are still different for other singularities. In this paper we show that a big freeze singularity in general relativity (GR) can in some cases be smoothed to a sudden or a type IV singularity under the EiBI scenario. Similarly, a sudden or a type IV singularity in GR can be replaced in some regions of the parameter space by a type IV singularity or a loitering behaviour, respectively, in the EiBI framework. Furthermore, we find that the auxiliary metric related to the physical connection usually has a smoother behaviour than that based on the physical metric. In addition, we show that bound structures close to a big rip or a little rip will be destroyed before the advent of the singularity and will remain bound close to a sudden, big freeze or type IV singularity. We then constrain the model following a cosmographic approach, which is well-known to be model-independent, for a given Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker geometry. It turns out that among the various past or present singularities, the cosmographic analysis can pick up the physical region that determines the occurrence of a type IV singularity or a loitering effect in the past. Moreover, to determine which of the future singularities or doomsdays is more probable, observational constraints on higher order cosmographic parameters is required., Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures. RevTex4-1. Revised/clarified version accepted in EPJC

We review the Seiberg-Witten instability of topological black holes in Anti-de Sitter space due to nucleation of brane-anti-brane pairs. We start with black holes in general relativity, and then proceed to discuss the peculiar property of topological black holes in Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz gravity -- they have instabilities that occur at only finite range of distance away from the horizon. This behavior is not unique to black holes in Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz theory, as it is also found in the relatively simple systems of charged black hole with dilaton hair that arise in low energy limit of string theory., Comment: 3 pages, minor correction, references updated; contribution for the Proceedings of 13th Marcel Grossman Meeting (MG13), Stockholm, Sweden, 1-7 July 2012

Firewalls are controversial principally because they seem to imply departures from general relativistic expectations in regions of spacetime where the curvature need not be particularly large. One of the virtues of the Harlow-Hayden approach to the firewall paradox, concerning the time available for decoding of Hawking radiation emanating from charged AdS black holes, is precisely that it operates in the context of cold black holes, which are not strongly curved outside the event horizon. Here we clarify this point. The approach is based on ideas borrowed from applications of the AdS/CFT correspondence to the quark-gluon plasma. Firewalls aside, our work presents a detailed analysis of the thermodynamics and evolution of evaporating charged AdS black holes with flat event horizons. We show that, in one way or another, these black holes are always eventually destroyed in a time which, while long by normal standards, is short relative to the decoding time of Hawking radiation., Comment: 32 pages, 10 figures, fixed some typos and slow loading of Fig.3; version accepted by Nucl. Phys. B

We investigate cusp singularities in f(R) gravity, especially for Starobinsky and Hu-Sawicki dark energy models. We illustrate that, by using double-null numerical simulations, a cusp singularity can be triggered by gravitational collapses. This singularity can be cured by adding a quadratic term, but this causes a Ricci scalar bump that can be observed by an observer outside the event horizon. Comparing with cosmological parameters, it seems that it would be difficult to see super-Planckian effects by astrophysical experiments. On the other hand, at once there exists a cusp singularity, it can be a mechanism to realize a horizon scale curvature singularity that can be interpreted by a firewall., Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures

For O(4)-symmetric instantons, there are two complementary interpretations for their analytic continuations. One is the nothing-to-something interpretation, where the initial and final hypersurfaces are disconnected by Euclidean manifolds. The other is the something-to-something interpretation, introduced by Brown and Weinberg, where the initial and final hypersurfaces are connected by the Euclidean manifold. These interpretations have their own pros and cons and hence they are complementary. In this paper, we consider analytic continuations of thin-shell instantons that have less symmetry, i.e., the spherical symmetry. When we consider the Farhi-Guth-Guven/Fischler-Morgan-Polchinski tunneling, the something-to-something interpretation has been used in the usual literature. On the other hand, we can apply the nothing-to-something interpretation with some limited conditions. We argue that for both interpretations, we can give the consistent decay rate. As we apply and interpret what follows the nothing-to-something interpretation, a stationary black hole can emit an expanding shell that results in a spacetime without a singularity or event horizon., Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures

We argue that, when the gravity effect is included, the generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) may prevent black holes from total evaporation in a similar way that the standard uncertainty principle prevents the hydrogen atom from total collapse. Specifically we invoke the GUP to obtain a modified Hawking temperature, which indicates that there should exist non-radiating remnants (BHR) of about Planck mass. BHRs are an attractive candidate for cold dark matter. We investigate an alternative cosmology in which primordial BHRs are the primary source of dark matter., Comment: 4 pages; to appear in the Proceedings of the 5th UCLA Dark Matter Symposium, Marina del Rey, Ca, Feb. 20-22, 2002

It is known that barotropic FRW equations written in the conformal time variable can be reduced to simple linear equations for an exponential function involving the conformal Hubble rate. Here, we show that an interesting class of barotropic universes can be obtained in the linear limit of a special type of nonlinear dissipative Ermakov-Pinney equations with the nonlinear dissipation built from Chiellini's integrability condition. These cosmologies, which evolutionary are similar to the standard ones, correspond to barotropic fluids with adiabatic indices rescaled by a particular factor and have amplitudes of the scale factors inverse proportional to the adiabatic index, 11 pages, 4 figures

The Born-Infeld determinantal gravity has been recently proposed as a way to smooth the Big Bang singularity. This theory is formulated on the Weitzenbock space-time and the teleparallel representation is used instead of the standard Riemannian representation. We find that although this theory is shown to be singularity-free for certain region of the parameter space in which the divergence of the Hubble rate at the high energy regime is substituted by a de-Sitter stage or a bounce in a Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker universe, cosmological singularities such as Big Rip, Big Bang, Big Freeze, and Sudden singularities can emerge in other regions of the configuration space of the theory. We also show that all these singular events exist even though the Universe is filled with a perfect fluid with a constant equation of state., 6 pages, 2 figures, RevTex4-1. A minor change. Version accepted in PRD

The evolution of evaporating charged black holes is complicated to model in general, but is nevertheless important since the hints to the Information Loss Paradox and its recent firewall incarnation may lie in understanding more generic geometries than that of Schwarzschild spacetime. Fortunately, for sufficiently large asymptotically flat Reissner-Nordstrom black holes, the evaporation process can be modeled via a system of coupled linear ordinary differential equations, with charge loss rate governed by Schwinger pair-production process. The same model can be generalized to study the evaporation of AdS Reissner-Nordstrom black holes with flat horizon. It was recently found that such black holes always evolve towards extremality since charge loss is inefficient. This property is completely opposite to the asymptotically flat case in which the black hole eventually loses its charges and tends towards Schwarzschild limit. We clarify the underlying reason for this different behavior., References updated. Published in JHEP