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Unanswered Questions

2,121 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
29 votes
0 answers
745 views

Extended Born relativity, Nambu 3-form and ternary ($n$-ary) symmetry

Background: Classical Mechanics is based on the Poincare-Cartan two-form $$\omega_2=dx\wedge dp$$ where $p=\dot{x}$. Quantum mechanics is secretly a subtle modification of this. On the other hand, the ...
28 votes
1 answer
1k views

Electric charges on compact four-manifolds

Textbook wisdom in electromagnetism tells you that there is no total electric charge on a compact manifold. For example, consider space-time of the form $\mathbb{R} \times M_3$ where the first factor ...
18 votes
1 answer
2k views

How to show the Gauss-Bonnet term is a total derivative?

It is well-known that the Gauss-Bonnet term $$\mathcal L_G =R^2 -4 R_{\mu\nu}R^{\mu\nu}+R_{\mu\nu\rho\sigma}R^{\mu\nu\rho\sigma}\tag 1$$ does not contribute to the equations of motion when adding it ...
15 votes
0 answers
271 views

Is it known what the necessary and sufficient conditions are for the existence of a "3+1 split" (by means of a foliation) of a (Lorentzian) manifold?

When trying to do physics on a more general pseudo-Riemannian manifold we want to require that there is a foliation of this manifold into three-dimensional subspaces. By this I mean we would like to ...
14 votes
0 answers
437 views

How to perform a derivative of a functional determinant?

Let us consider a functional determinant $$\det G^{-1}(x,y;g_{\mu\nu})$$ where the operator $G^{-1}(x,y;g_{\mu\nu})$ reads $$G^{-1}(x,y;g_{\mu\nu})=\delta^{(4)}(x-y)\sqrt{-g(y)}\left(g^{\mu\nu}(y)\...
14 votes
0 answers
311 views

What is the stringy interpretation of the cohomology classes arising from the Kähler class?

In superstring theory, one usually considers compactifications on Calabi-Yau 3-manifolds. These manifolds are in particular compact Kähler, hence possess a Kähler class which gives rise to nontrivial ...
11 votes
0 answers
445 views

View of the sky from inside a black hole

Consider an observer located at radius $r_o$ from a Schwarzschild black hole of radius $r_s$. The observer may be inside the event horizon ($r_o < r_s$). Suppose the observer receives a light ray ...
11 votes
0 answers
365 views

Significance for LQG of Sen's result on entropy of black holes?

Sen 2013 says, ...we apply Euclidean gravity to compute logarithmic corrections to the entropy of various non-extremal black holes in different dimensions [...] For Schwarzschild black holes in ...
11 votes
1 answer
457 views

Aren't black holes required to exist forever in our frame of reference instead of evaporating?

I know that for an observer far away, nothing ever crosses a black hole horizon (due to time dilation), while in the frame of reference of a falling observer the horizon is nothing special on its way ...
10 votes
0 answers
271 views

Can you put the Spin Connection in block diagonal form? (to be applied to the Atiyah-Singer theorem)

I'm following the notes by Freed about the Dirac Operator. In section 5.4, equation (5.4.25-27), he makes the following claim about the Dirac operator. In a different notation than what he is using, ...
10 votes
2 answers
940 views

Conservation of Komar mass

The definition of Komar mass in GR is associated with one asymptotically flat end. However, a hypersurface may contain more than one end, such as the spacelike Einstein-Rosen bridge in Kruskal ...
10 votes
0 answers
295 views

What really are exotic supersymmetric black holes?

I have just read (in the black holes chapter 14 on p244 of this book Ref.1) that in string theory, when one adds an (electric?) charge $Q$ to a static black hole, one can arrive at an exotic ...
10 votes
0 answers
500 views

Can a nearly-extremal black hole be stable against Schwinger vacuum breakdown?

I was doing some basic algebra to estimate the range of possible masses $M$ and electric charge $Q$ for a nearly extremal Reissner-Noström black hole. I want to see if the logic is correct the ...
10 votes
0 answers
259 views

Can we have consistent histories inside a black hole?

A consistent history is a POVM set of observables corresponding to a time-ordered product of projection operators. For gauge theories, not any old operator will do, only gauge-invariant observables. ...
9 votes
3 answers
332 views

Quantum pressure and chemical potential for a Schwarzschild black hole?

Just as Hawking showed that even Schwarzschild black holes have a temperature, shouldn't they also have a pressure and chemical potential? Are there any analytical formulae of those as well as $$ T_{...

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