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Title: Spontaneous Creation of Circularly Polarized Photons in Chiral Astrophysical Systems

Abstract

This work establishes a relation between chiral anomalies in curved spacetimes and the radiative content of the gravitational field. In particular, we show that a flux of circularly polarized gravitational waves triggers the spontaneous creation of photons with net circular polarization from the quantum vacuum. Using waveform catalogs, we identify precessing binary black holes as astrophysical configurations that emit such gravitational radiation and then solve the fully nonlinear Einstein’s equations with numerical relativity to evaluate the net effect. The quantum amplitude for a merger is comparable to the Hawking emission rate of the final black hole and small to be directly observed. However, the implications for the inspiral of binary neutron stars could be more prominent, as argued on symmetry grounds.

Authors:
 [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3];  [4];  [4]
  1. Univ. of Lisbon (Portugal)
  2. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Rochester Inst. of Technology, Rochester, NY (United States)
  3. Louisiana State Univ., Baton Rouge, LA (United States)
  4. Univ. of Valencia (Spain)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
OSTI Identifier:
1632075
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC05-00OR22725
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Physical Review Letters
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 124; Journal Issue: 21; Journal ID: ISSN 0031-9007
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS

Citation Formats

Del Rio, Adrian, Sanchis-Gual, Nicolas, Mewes, Vassilios, Agullo, Ivan, Font, Jose A., and Navarro-Salas, Jose. Spontaneous Creation of Circularly Polarized Photons in Chiral Astrophysical Systems. United States: N. p., 2020. Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.211301.
Del Rio, Adrian, Sanchis-Gual, Nicolas, Mewes, Vassilios, Agullo, Ivan, Font, Jose A., & Navarro-Salas, Jose. Spontaneous Creation of Circularly Polarized Photons in Chiral Astrophysical Systems. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.211301
Del Rio, Adrian, Sanchis-Gual, Nicolas, Mewes, Vassilios, Agullo, Ivan, Font, Jose A., and Navarro-Salas, Jose. Wed . "Spontaneous Creation of Circularly Polarized Photons in Chiral Astrophysical Systems". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.211301. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1632075.
@article{osti_1632075,
title = {Spontaneous Creation of Circularly Polarized Photons in Chiral Astrophysical Systems},
author = {Del Rio, Adrian and Sanchis-Gual, Nicolas and Mewes, Vassilios and Agullo, Ivan and Font, Jose A. and Navarro-Salas, Jose},
abstractNote = {This work establishes a relation between chiral anomalies in curved spacetimes and the radiative content of the gravitational field. In particular, we show that a flux of circularly polarized gravitational waves triggers the spontaneous creation of photons with net circular polarization from the quantum vacuum. Using waveform catalogs, we identify precessing binary black holes as astrophysical configurations that emit such gravitational radiation and then solve the fully nonlinear Einstein’s equations with numerical relativity to evaluate the net effect. The quantum amplitude for a merger is comparable to the Hawking emission rate of the final black hole and small to be directly observed. However, the implications for the inspiral of binary neutron stars could be more prominent, as argued on symmetry grounds.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.211301},
journal = {Physical Review Letters},
number = 21,
volume = 124,
place = {United States},
year = {2020},
month = {5}
}

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