We study the possible types of the nucleation of vacuum bubbles. We classify vacuum bubbles in de Sitter background and present some numerical solutions. The thin-wall approximation is employed to obtain the nucleation rate and the radius of vacuum bubbles. With careful analysis we confirm that Parke's formula is also applicable to the large true vacuum bubbles. The nucleation of the false vacuum bubble in de Sitter background is also evaluated. The tunneling process in the potential with degenerate vacua is analyzed as the limiting cases of the large true vacuum bubble and false vacuum bubble. Next, we consider the pair creation of black holes in the background of bubble solutions. We obtain static bubble wall solutions of junction equation with black hole pair. The masses of created black holes are uniquely determined by the cosmological constant and surface tension on the wall. Finally, we obtain the rate of pair creation of black holes.

We propose a method for identifying holographic chemical potentials of conserved charges. The guiding principle is the consistency of the identification with the thermodynamic relations and the Legendre transformation. We consider the baryon-charge chemical potential as an example, and explain why the degree of freedom of the constant shift of the bulk U(1) gauge field is absent when the Legendre transformation is well-defined. The method proposed here suggests that the definition of the chemical potential may be more complicated compared with the case of localized charge if we have a nontrivial charge distribution along the radial direction of the bulk geometry.

In three-dimensional AdS space, we consider the gravitational collapse of dust shell and then investigate the quantum radiation from the collapsing shell by employing the functional Schrödinger formalism. In the formation of the BTZ black hole, the interior geometry of the shell can be chosen as either the massless black hole or the global AdS space. In the incipient black hole limit, we obtain the wave function exactly from the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for a massless scalar field. Then, we show that the occupation number of excited states can be written by analytic expressions, and the radiation temperature is in agreement with the Hawking temperature, irrespective of the specific choice of the interior geometries.

The abnormally fast orbital decay observed in the black hole (BH) Low-Mass X-ray binaries (BH-LMXB) A0620-00 and XTE J1118+480 can be explained by the dynamical friction between Dark Matter (DM) and the companion star orbiting around the low-mass BH (of a few $M_\odot$) of the system. In this case the value of the index $\gamma_{\rm sp}$ of the DM spike surrounding the BH can be pinned down with an accuracy of a few percent, way better than that for much bigger systems such as the super massive BHs (SMBHs) in the Galactic Center or in M87. We have used data from XTE J1118+480 to put bounds on the WIMP annihilation cross section times velocity $\langle \sigma v\rangle$, assuming that DM annihilation is driven by the $b\bar{b}$ annihilation channel and that it proceeds in $s$-wave. The bounds are driven by the radio synchrotron signal produced by $e^\pm$ final states propagating in the magnetic field near the BH. For DM masses $m_\chi$ up to the TeV scale XTE J1118+480 allows to constrain $\langle \sigma v\rangle$ well below $\langle\sigma v\rangle_{\rm thermal}$, corresponding to the observed DM relic density in the Universe for a thermal WIMP. On the other hand, for $m_\chi \gtrsim$ 15 GeV, the bounds from the SMBHs in the GC or in M87 do not reach $\langle\sigma v\rangle_{\rm thermal}$ when the very large uncertainties on the corresponding spike indices are taken into account, in spite of potentially producing much larger DM densities compared to XTE J1118+480. Our bounds for XTE J1118+480 have a mild sensitivity on spatial diffusion, but diffusion enhances the sensitivity of the results upon the intensity of the magnetic field. Taken at face value the bound from XTE J1118+480 on $\langle \sigma v\rangle$ is the most constraining compared to all others for $m_\chi\lesssim$ 1 TeV, unless the intensity of the magnetic field is significantly smaller than its equipartition estimation.

We propose the ultra high energy cosmic ray recently detected by Telescope Array to be the electroweak monopole, and present theoretical arguments which support this. This strongly motivates the necessity for the ``cosmic" MoEDAL experiment which could back up our proposal. To confirm this we propose Telescope Array to measure the magnetic charge of the ultra high energy cosmic ray particles with SQUID.

Benchmarks for beyond the Standard Model (BSM) searches are mostly constructed around particular features of interest related to the experiment under consideration without giving due address to the results from other experiments. In this article, we present a 30-parameter MSSM phenomenological framework and benchmark points relevant for the long-lived particles and Higgs boson decays to BSM particle studies. These are extracted via scans of the model parameter space compatible with low-energy constraints from electroweak physics, B-physics, the dipole moment of the electron, and cold dark matter relic density measurements. We present four benchmark points that are illustrative on how light values of supersymmetric particles can still be. Neutralinos and charginos can be lighter than W-boson mass in sharp contrast to the expectations by conclusions derived based on simplified supersymmetric models.

Observations restrict the parameter space of Holographic Dark Energy (HDE) so that a turning point in the Hubble parameter $H(z)$ is inevitable. Concretely, cosmic microwave background (CMB), baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) and Type Ia supernovae (SNE) data put the turning point in the future, but removing SNE results in an observational turning point at positive redshift. From the perspective of theory, not only does the turning point violate the Null Energy Condition (NEC), but as we argue, it may be interpreted as an evolution of the Hubble constant $H_0$ with redshift, which is at odds with the very FLRW framework within which data has been analysed. Tellingly, neither of these are problems for the flat $\Lambda$CDM model, and a direct comparison of fits further disfavours HDE relative to flat $\Lambda$CDM.

Using the bottom-up approach in a holographic setting, we attempt to study both the transport and thermodynamic properties of a generic system in 3+1 dimensional bulk spacetime. We show the exact 1/T and $T^2$ dependence of the longitudinal conductivity and Hall angle, as seen experimentally in most copper-oxide systems, which are believed to be close to quantum critical point. This particular temperature dependence to conductivities are possible in two different cases: (1) Background solutions with scale invariant and broken rotational symmetry, (2) solutions with pseudo-scaling and unbroken rotational symmetry but only at low density limit. Generically, the study of the transport properties in a scale invariant background solution, using the probe brane approach, at high density and at low temperature limit suggests us to consider only metrics with two exponents. More precisely, the spatial part of the metric components should not be same i.e., $g_{xx}\neq g_{yy}$. In doing so, we have generated the above mentioned behavior to conductivity with a very special behavior to specific heat which at low temperature goes as: $C_V\sim T^3$. However, if we break the scaling symmetry of the background solution by including a nontrivial dilaton, axion or both and keep the rotational symmetry then also we can generate such a behavior to conductivity but only in the low density regime. As far as we are aware, this particular temperature dependence to both the conductivity and Hall angle is being shown for the first time using holography.

In this paper, we compare dispersions of a scalar field in Euclidean quantum gravity with stochastic inflation. We use Einstein gravity and a minimally coupled scalar field with a quadratic potential. We restrict our attention to small mass and small field cases. In the Euclidean approach, we introduce the ground state wave function which is approximated by instantons. We used a numerical technique to find instantons that satisfy classicality. In the stochastic approach, we introduce the probability distribution of Hubble patches that can be approximated by locally homogeneous universes down to a smoothing scale. We assume that the ground state wave function should correspond to the stationary state of the probability distribution of the stochastic universe. By comparing the dispersion of both approaches, we conclude three main results. (1) For a statistical distribution with a certain value, we can find a corresponding instanton in the Euclidean side, and it should be a complex-valued instanton. (2) The size of the universe of the Euclidean approach corresponds to the smoothing scale of the stochastic side; the universe is homogeneous up to the Euclidean instanton. (3) In addition, as the mass increases up to a critical value, both approaches break at the same time. Hence, generation of classical inhomogeneity in the stochastic approach and the instability of classicality in the Euclidean approach are related.

In a dilaton gravity model, we revisit the calculation of the temperature of an evaporating black hole that is initially formed by a shock wave, taking into account the quantum backreaction. Based on the holographic principle, along with the assumption of a boundary equation of motion, we show that the black hole energy is maintained for a while during the early stage of evaporation. Gradually, it decreases as time goes on and eventually vanishes. Thus, the Stefan-Boltzmann law tells us that the black hole temperature, defined by the emission rate of the black hole energy, starts from zero temperature and reaches a maximum value at a critical time, and finally vanishes. It is also shown that the maximum temperature of the evaporating black hole never exceeds the Hawking temperature of the eternal AdS$_{2}$ black hole. We discuss physical implications of the initial zero temperature of the evaporating black hole.

In connection with black hole complementarity, we study the possibility of the duplication of information in the RST model which is an exactly soluble quantized model in two dimensions. We find that the duplication of information can be observed without resort to assuming an excessively large number of scalar fields. If we introduce a firewall, then we can circumvent this problem; however, the firewall should be outside the event horizon.

According to the no-hair theorem, stationary black holes are uniquely characterized by their mass, charge, and angular momentum. In this paper, we explore quantum hair by deriving the quantum-corrected black hole metric within the Barvinsky-Vilkovisky formalism. The quantum-corrected metric is obtained perturbatively around flat spacetime without assuming either the commutativity between the nonlocal operator and covariant derivatives or the nonlocal Gauss-Bonnet theorem, both of which are adopted in previous studies. Using this metric, we evaluate the deflection angle in the strong-field limit and compute the associated strong gravitational lensing observables, such as the angular separation and the relative magnification. Our results show that as the quantum hair, determined by the number of virtual massless quantum fields in the nonlocal effective action, increases, the photon sphere radius, the strong deflection angle, and the relative magnification all increase, whereas the angular separation decreases. In addition, the role of quantum hair is discussed in the weak and strong naked singularities. As a result, we demonstrate that the quantum hair affects not only the black hole geometry but also its strong gravitational lensing effects.