Rotational effects on strongly gravitating systems with matter

ended

Black holes (BHs), where gravity is strongest in the universe, are the objects where we must confront the most extreme phenomena predicted by general relativity (GR) and extensions thereof. As for the majority of astrophysical bodies, BHs are typically spinning. However, addressing rotation in GR is notoriously difficult. Moreover, BHs are ‘dirty’: they are accompanied by clouds of gas or accretion disks, which introduce deviations from the known vacuum solutions. The complexity of the Einstein equations, taking into account the presence of matter and the rotation of spacetime, hampers attempts to model realistic BHs. The prime goal of this research proposal is to deepen our understanding of BH dynamics in the presence of matter, and in particular the interplay between matter and the rotation of spacetime. This line of research will significantly advance our knowledge regarding the stability of more realistic (non-vacuum, non-spherically symmetric) BHs, as well as on outstanding issues, such as cosmic censorship. Moreover, BHs nowadays are central to many areas of physics through the application of GR to fields other than the traditional ones of astrophysics and cosmology, namely to the more modern ones such as quantum gravity, high-energy physics (HEP) and strongly coupled quantum systems. Higher-dimensional gravity and the gauge/gravity duality provide a strong motivation to investigate BHs in contexts formerly regarded as removed from physical applications, in particular asymptotically anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetimes of more than four dimensions. This proposal investigates, as a natural extension of the above-mentioned problems, the dynamics of rotating AdS BHs with implications for our understanding of thermalization in strongly coupled quantum theories.