Papers

Space-based gravitational-wave detectors such as LISA, Taiji, and TianQin employ time-delay interferometry (TDI) to cancel laser-frequency noise for unequal-arm constellations. Since different TDI observables exhibit distinct sky responses, a linear combination of candidate channels can enhance the average response over one sky region while suppressing that of another. We construct a frequency-domain response matrix for TDI combinations, average it across target and suppressed sky regions, and derive the optimal weights via a generalized eigenvalue problem that maximizes the ratio between these two regional responses. At millihertz frequencies, examples with the $A$, $E$, and $T$ channels, the Sagnac combinations $\alpha$, $\beta$, and $\gamma$, and 16-links TDI show that a sky-region null and a large regional contrast are possible near the chosen frequency, with eigenvalues $\rho$ ranging from $\mathcal{O}(10)$ for small bases to $\mathcal{O}(10^2)$ for the larger set. The method is therefore expected to be well suited to nearly monochromatic sources such as the resolved Galactic double white dwarf binaries in the millihertz band. The Target-to-Suppression Ratio (TSR) peaks near the design frequency and falls quickly away from it, so the optimized weight vector is inherently narrowband and suited to targeted searches around a chosen frequency and sky direction.

Quantum imaginarity is a fundamental quantum resource essential for quantum information processing. In this paper, we investigate the dynamical evolution behavior of quantum imaginarity for tripartite quantum mixed states in Schwarzschild spacetime. We find that Hawking radiation degrades the quantum resource of imaginarity, consistent with the behavior of entanglement and coherence under the Hawking effect. Interestingly, imaginarity exhibits a sharp change in the early stage of Hawking radiation, after which it varies slowly and asymptotically approaches a steady value. We further derive several trade-off relations that characterize the nonlocal redistribution of imaginarity across Rindler horizons. The findings of this study contribute to a deeper understanding of quantum resource behaviors in black hole spacetimes.

Quantum mutual information is a fundamental quantity for characterizing correlations among quantum systems. In this work, we investigate the dynamic evolution of the quantum mutual information based on Rényi-2 entropy for three-mode Gaussian states in the background of a Schwarzschild black hole. We find that the physically inaccessible mutual information increases with Hawking temperature and eventually saturates, while the physically accessible mutual information exhibits nonmonotonic temperature dependence: it first rises, reaches a peak, then declines toward a finite asymptotic value. This nonmonotonic behavior differs from the monotonic degradation typically observed for Gaussian entanglement and steering in curved spacetime. Furthermore, we establish several constraint relations governing the distribution of mutual information among subsystems. These findings contribute to understanding the quantumness of quantum correlations for continuous variable in Schwarzschild spacetime.

The gravitational energies of timelike singularities in some asymptotically AdS spaces and in the Schwarzschild black hole with negative mass are explicitly computed. In all cases considered, the energy is finite and positive, depends on the geometry around the singularity, and compensates negative energy contributions from the asymptotic boundary, rendering the total gravitational energy positive. The definition used for energy is the on-shell Hamiltonian of the physical classical action proposed by Hawking and Horowitz~\cite{Hawking-Horowitz}. To deal with the singularity, spacetime is cut off by a timelike regulating boundary surrounding the singularity that is compatible with a foliation of spacetime in constant-time slices. It is shown that the total energy of static AdS-Kasner solutions with timelike Kasner singularities is equal to the energy of the planar AdS black hole, and that the Schwarzschild black hole with negative mass has the same energy as Minkowski space.

With the projected increase in the detection rate of compact-binary coalescences in the coming decade, there is critical need to develop fast, robust, and scalable alternatives to matched filtering for gravitational-wave searches. Transformer models have revolutionized natural language and audio processing but their application to gravitational-wave astronomy is still largely unexplored. In this work, we introduce \castor, a transformer-based coincident search pipeline for detecting binary black hole gravitational-wave signals from Advanced LIGO detectors. One of the major features of our model is that it allows the false-alarm rate to be estimated via time slides cheaply without requiring repeated evaluations of the neural network. We evaluate \castor\ on datasets from the Machine-Learning Gravitational-Wave Search Challenge (MLGWSC-1) and on approximately five months of real O3b observing strain. When tested on benchmark datasets, \castor\ ranks among the most sensitive machine-learning pipelines and successfully recovers the majority of confident events from the GWTC-3 catalog that lie within its training range. We also benchmark \castor\ against another transformer architecture, GW-Whisper, a domain-adaptation of OpenAI's audio foundation model. We find that \castor\ substantially outperforms the repurposed audio model in sensitivity and also reduces the computational cost of background estimation by a factor of 20. Our results demonstrate a highly practical, scalable approach for deep-learning gravitational wave searches and empirical background estimation for future observing runs.

Higher-gradient modifications of Newtonian gravity remove the point-mass singularity, but their Lagrangian dynamics is haunted by the Ostrogradsky instability. We show that the same field equations follow from the Second Law of thermodynamics applied to a self-gravitating fluid with a weakly nonlocal state space, and that on this route the instability is absent by construction: the potential obeys a first-order relaxation equation that is a gradient flow, whose Lyapunov function is the entropy density, and whose relaxation spectrum is negative definite at every wavenumber precisely when the entropy is concave. The derivation also yields the pressure tensor and the energy current, an exact identity that reproduces Newton's force law without further input, and a dissipation-free cross-coupling to the bulk viscous pressure that no variational principle can produce. Regularity constrains the Yukawa-type corrections by an amplitude sum rule, $\sum_i\alpha_i=-1$, so that laboratory tests of the inverse-square law bound the largest internal length below $4\times10^{-5}$~m, and identify the complex-root regime as a classically consistent Lee–Wick-like sector.

In this article, we establish a new dimensional reduction result in (Galilean or Lorentzian) Robertson Walker spacetimes with Euclidean fiber. In this context, we prove that every unchanged direction observer can be embedded into a three dimensional totally geodesic timelike submanifold.

We investigate cosmological diffusion models in unimodular gravity within a dynamical systems reconstruction framework. By treating the logarithmic slope of the diffusion sector as an invertible dynamical variable, the diffusion function can be systematically reconstructed from the phase-space structure of the cosmological evolution. Under these conditions, we determine the physically admissible fixed points of the system, identifying novel matter–diffusion scaling solutions associated with power-law diffusion sectors, as well as purely diffusion-dominated configurations capable of driving late-time accelerated expansion without requiring an explicit cosmological constant term. The local behavior around the fixed points is then extended to the full cosmological evolution, providing a framework to explore the global implications of diffusion cosmologies. Beyond the asymptotic fixed-point structure, we further develop a reconstruction formalism based on the dynamical evolution of the diffusion slope, allowing for trajectories interpolating between different diffusion regimes during the cosmic history. Our results establish a systematic framework for constructing and classifying viable diffusion cosmologies in unimodular gravity directly from the phase-space dynamics.

We numerically study the collapse of rotating, very-massive stellar cores with masses of $\approx 200$, $300$, $500$, and $1100M_\odot$ into black holes using both axisymmetric and three-dimensional (3D) numerical relativity. Our results indicate that when the dimensionless spin of the resulting black hole exceeds 0.8, a massive disk consistently forms around it. These massive, compact disks, carrying more than about 10% of the black hole's mass, are prone to non-axisymmetric deformations that trigger gravitational-wave bursts with frequencies around 10-50 Hz. Such waves could be detected by the Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer, even from sources a few Gpc away. We also summarize the gravitational-wave signals from axisymmetric collapse, which tend to have lower amplitudes and higher frequencies than those caused by non-axisymmetric instabilities.

We revisit the quantum Hall analog of Hawking radiation in which a Fermi sea of electrons occupying half of a plane, subjected to a quadrupolar electric potential, gives rise to analog Hawking radiation of chiral edge modes. We show that the phenomenon is accurately captured by quantization of the classical guiding center theory, where the gyroscopic motion of the electrons is coarse grained and only the drift motion is resolved. The quantum dynamics takes place on a non-commutative plane, which requires an electron localized in the half-plane to be supported everywhere along the edge direction. This kinematical constraint on the quantum state leads directly to the radiation, which propagates in both directions away from the origin along the edge. The radiation is thermal with respect to laboratory time, which is equal (up to a constant factor) to the boost angle in the analog Minkowski spacetime in which the chiral edge modes propagate, so in fact it corresponds to analog Unruh radiation.

We show that the subleading collinear sector of Yang-Mills (YM) amplitudes is controlled by ordinary Einstein-Yang-Mills (EYM) amplitudes and their higher-derivative corrections. The complete set of strict subleading collinear limits associated with an equal-helicity collinear pair can be extracted from open-closed string disk amplitudes. The latter generate $\frac12 (n-3)!$ BCJ-like relations with non-linear kinematic coefficients, reducing the $(n-3)!$ collinear data to a basis of dimension $\frac12 (n-3)!$. This reduced basis can be represented by gravitational amplitudes in EYM theories and by their higher-derivative open-string corrections. At multiplicity $n$ this gravitational basis consists of the $(n-4)!$ independent EYM subamplitudes together with $\frac12 (n-5)(n-4)!$ higher-order corrections involving one graviton and $n-2$ gluons. The resulting decomposition is governed by unsigned Stirling numbers of the first kind: the ordinary EYM amplitudes correspond to the sector $\left[{n-3\atop 1}\right]$, the higher-order BCJ-like relations to even sectors $\left[{n-3\atop 2j}\right]$, and the higher-derivative EYM corrections to odd sectors $\left[{n-3\atop 2j+1}\right]$ with $j\geq 1$.

Axion fields can form exponentially growing gravitational clouds around compact objects through self-interaction-driven relaxation of ambient axion waves. As the field amplitude approaches the axion decay constant, nonlinear effects become important. We identify two distinct regimes of late-time evolution, determined by the gravitational fine-structure constant and the cloud growth rate: a Bosenova regime, characterized by collapse accompanied by explosive axion bursts, and a saturation regime, in which self-interaction-induced axion emission balances accretion. In the latter regime, the emitted axion radiation exhibits stable discrete spectral lines at odd multiples of the bound-state energy, directly probing the global structure of the axion potential beyond its quadratic minimum. We show that single-cosine potentials and QCD axion-like potentials predict distinct emission spectra, enabling probes of the underlying axion self-interaction structure and its ultraviolet completion through terrestrial detection of relativistic axion fluxes from compact objects.

It was suggested by 't Hooft that to avoid the divergence of the free energy or entropy of the probe fields, one has to introduce an infrared (IR) cutoff. This introduction of the IR cutoff, namely, the brick wall model, has been studied for the Schwarzschild black hole and has been shown by 't Hooft that to have the entropy of the order of Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, the cutoff must be of the order of Planck length. In this study, we investigated the brick wall model in the context of a Reissner-Nordstróm, quantum corrected Schwarzschild and quantum corrected Reissner-Nordström black holes. In particular, we have shown that the brick wall model can give logarithmic correction to the black hole entropy in the subleading order. The important aspect of our analysis is that we have not considered the near horizon approximation of the lapse function and get more accurate correction to the entropy. This corrected entropy has an important feature that it is larger than the usual Bekenstein-Hawking entropy which aligns with the result of Barrow entropy.

A two-stage methodological proof of concept for screening simplified post-merger gravitational-wave damping anomalies in real LIGO Livingston noise is presented. The injected signal is a controlled damped-sinusoid proxy rather than a physically complete binary-neutron-star post-merger waveform; it is used to test statistical detectability and damping-time scoring under real-noise calibration. Stage 1 constructs a local time-frequency graph from Constant-Q representations of whitened candidate windows and uses the leading eigenvalue as a detectability statistic, with its null distribution calibrated empirically on real detector noise. Stage 2 estimates an effective damping-time score for Stage-1-passing candidates using nonlinear least squares and an interpretable ridge/energy-decay estimator, with thresholds fixed before final held-out evaluation. The matched-filter SNR convention is checked with synthetic Gaussian noise, while the graph statistic is assessed through power-comparison and tile-shuffling tests. On a held-out real-noise test block, the nonlinear least-squares Stage-2 score gives AUC = 0.943 and TPR = 0.879 at FPR = 0.012, outperforming a calibrated power-only baseline.

Nambu-Goto cosmic string loops generically develop cusps, points where the string momentarily reaches the speed of light. These cusps produce strong gravitational wave bursts with a characteristic strain spectrum $\tilde{h}(\omega)\propto (G\mu)\,\omega^{-4/3}$, making them prime targets for gravitational wave searches, where $\mu$ is the string mass per unit length. However, this picture is modified when one accounts for gravitational backreaction. Using a convenient gauge, we reformulate the Nambu-Goto equations of motion for a loop moving in its own dynamically sourced gravitational field, enabling the first continuous numerical evolution of loops under this backreaction. A key finding is that locally cusps survive backreaction. Nevertheless, the gravitational waveform calculated in this formalism is significantly modified, weakening the cusp burst and introducing a high-frequency cutoff at $f_c\propto(G\mu)^{-3/2}$. This suppression above $f_c$ reduces the expected signal-to-noise ratio in current and near-future detectors relative to unperturbed waveform predictions.

We introduce a family of effective theories and use them to define a specific type of coarse-grained models for canonical loop quantum gravity. Each effective theory is characterized by two parameters and it consists mainly of a Hilbert space of coarse states and an effective Hamiltonian operator. The construction of the coarse Hilbert spaces relies on a systematic coarse-graining procedure for spin network states. The effective Hamiltonians are then obtained from an analysis of the interplay between this coarse-graining procedure and the action of various Hamiltonian operators defined in loop quantum gravity. Finally, we provide a prescription for implementing the Hamiltonian non-perturbative renormalization framework for the coarse-grained models, and we explicitly write down the renormalization flow equations. The aim of this work is to build an arena for studying the emergence of the continuum limit and the derivation of phenomenological models in the context of canonical loop quantum gravity.

We study the existence of gravitational radiation at infinity for pure-radiation Robinson-Trautman metrics with one spacelike Killing vector and a cosmological constant $\Lambda$ of arbitrary sign. These metrics describe "photon rockets" with point, string, and sheet sources moving through spacetime while emitting null radiation. For $\Lambda\neq 0$, we use criteria for the existence of gravitational radiation based on the asymptotic super-Poynting vector. For point sources, we extend to $\Lambda\neq 0$ the known $\Lambda=0$ result that the Kinnersley rocket is the only rocket without gravitational radiation. However, for string and sheet sources, new possibilities without gravitational radiation arise. For $\Lambda>0$, we show that the vanishing of the canonical asymptotic super-Poynting vector—computed with respect to the unit normal to scri—exactly characterizes the absence of radiation. On the other hand, for $\Lambda<0$, we show that the appropriate criterion is the vanishing of the components normal to scri of the asymptotic super-Poynting vectors associated with any unit timelike vector tangent to scri or, equivalently, the proportionality between the Cotton-York tensor and the holographic stress tensor at scri. In particular, we provide explicit examples of metrics for which the Cotton-York and holographic stress tensors commute, yet gravitational radiation is present because the two tensors are not proportional. We also determine the principal null directions (PNDs) of the rescaled Weyl tensor at scri for both signs of $\Lambda$ and relate their geometry relative to the normal to scri to the tensorial criteria for gravitational radiation.

For eccentric systems with aligned spins, we compute all spin contributions to the gauge-invariant conservative map between the constants of motion (energy and angular momentum) and the fundamental (radial and azimuthal) frequencies at the fourth post-Newtonian order. This extends the nonspinning map derived in [arXiv:2511.10735] to include terms that are linear, quadratic, cubic, and quartic in spin, as well as the associated spin-deformability parameters. We also obtain derived quantities such as the redshift and gyroscopic invariants, as well as circular links. We notice that the Blanchet-Iyer-Favata post-Newtonian stability criterion that determines the dimensionless frequency of the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) is in fact intricately related to the periastron advance for circular orbits. Finally, in the case of unbound orbits, we complete the 4PN scattering angle with all spin contributions.

Black holes link gravity, thermodynamics and information via limits on the relaxation rate of a perturbed system. The Bekenstein-Hod bound imposes a minimum relaxation time at fixed temperature, but its observational test demands both black hole thermodynamic characterization and decay time measurement. Here we test this bound with GW250114, the loudest gravitational-wave signal yet observed from a binary black-hole merger. We infer the remnant temperature from pre-merger data truncated at least $10\,M$ before the peak and its longest-lived decay time from post-merger data, thereby avoiding direct reuse of the same strain samples. The ringdown frequencies and damping times are allowed to vary independently rather than being fixed to the Kerr spectrum. For the primary $t_{<}=-10\,M$ analysis, the bound is verified at $3.3-3.6\sigma$ across the focal ringdown start times, representing a substantial improvement over the $91\%$ confidence level set by GW150914. The conclusion remains robust under varied pre-merger cutoffs and explicit inclusion of the short-lived first overtone in waveform modelling. This separated-data measurement converts an information-theoretic relaxation bound into a precision test of a single astrophysical black hole.

In this work, we study tidal effects that can be observed in gravitational wave transient from neutron star-black hole (NSBH) mergers. It has been well known that neutron star's tidal deformation has imprint of equation of state and hence composition of neutron star matter. Compared to binary neutron star mergers, where we observe a combined effect of two neutron stars by measuring the parameter known as lambda tilde. In neutron star black hole mergers, we measure the tidal deformability of the neutron star component clearly. In this work, we study the feasibility of measuring the bare tidal deformability of a neutron star with planned gravitational detectors in the near and far future. We use the parameter estimation computation framework, Bilby is used to perform Bayesian inference for hundreds of NSBH mergers in current and future GW detector networks and obtain the posterior probability distribution functions of binary parameters. We find that we need at least 20 events to clearly distinguish the equation state of neutron stars in future detectors, including the Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer.

In this work, we investigate the resonant interaction between stochastic gravitational waves (GWs) and chiral Alfvén waves in a magnetized chiral plasma in the early Universe. Starting from covariant chiral magnetohydrodynamics coupled to linearized gravity, we derive a closed system of equations for the coupled chiral-Alfvén velocity and magnetic-field perturbations. Both analytics and numerics show a parametric resonance at the sum frequency of the two CVE-split branches, with an instability band that widens as the GW strain grows. This CVE-to-Alfvén ratio is not a free parameter. In the early Universe, it is fixed by the Standard Model's relativistic degrees of freedom. Including the plasma's backreaction on the GW makes the energy exchange nonlinear, breaking the usual single-frequency Manley-Rowe picture. For a self-consistent choice of parameters, where backreaction is only a small correction, the unsuppressed resonance still drives the system to a finite-time blow-up within a few Hubble times. We then work out the resonant frequencies and growth rates involved, mapping out what current and future gravitational-wave detectors could observe.

We investigate the Saha ionization equilibrium in the exterior Schwarzschild spacetime. Starting from the mass-shell condition for a massive particle, we derive the conserved energy associated with the timelike Killing symmetry and obtain its nonrelativistic limit in terms of the Schwarzschild lapse function. This energy is then incorporated into the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution to construct the ionization balance as seen by an asymptotic observer. We show that the gravitational field modifies the Saha relation through the redshift of both the particle energies and the thermodynamic variables. By imposing the Tolman–Ehrenfest and Klein equilibrium conditions, the formulation expressed entirely in terms of locally measured quantities reduces to the standard flat-spacetime Saha equation. We further analyze the gravitational redshift of the ionization energy, the relative departure from the flat-spacetime ionization ratio, and the corresponding shift of the ionization fraction as a function of the asymptotic temperature. We also present the relativistic classical counterpart based on the Maxwell–Jüttner distribution and show explicitly that its leading correction is negligible in the temperature range where neutral hydrogen is appreciably abundant. These results provide a consistent description of ionization equilibrium in a static gravitational field and clarify the distinction between gravitational redshift effects and intrinsic modifications of local atomic physics.

We consider the difference between ensemble and volume average in cosmology. It is known that for sufficiently weak long-range correlations the root mean square of the difference, which we call ergodicity bias, decays like $R^{-3/2}$ in the limit of large volume $R^3$. We calculate the condition this imposes on the power spectrum of a Gaussian random field. We quantify the bias for finite $R$, and show that the $R\to\infty$ limit is of little relevance for cosmological observations when the measured scales and correlations extend to the size of the observable universe. We consider curvature, density, and velocity perturbations. On large scales the bias is important in all three cases. For the density perturbations, which are observationally the most relevant, the relative bias first exceeds 100% at the separation $r=177$ Mpc, and is larger than 100% for all $r>560$ Mpc. It should be taken into account when comparing ensemble and volume averages for large-scale structure. The bias is also large for the cosmic microwave background temperature perturbations on large angular scales, but this is not relevant for observations, as their analysis does not involve volume averaging.

Layering is a ubiquitous feature of astrophysical objects. Motivated by the fact that physical black holes retain the layered structure of their progenitor stars when viewed in the time concepts synchronizable with the clock of an outside fixed-position probe, we investigate linear perturbations and gravitational-wave (GW) echoes from a compact object composed of two concentric thin shells. Compared with the single-shell case, the double-shell structure introduces an extra barrier in the effective potential and partitions the wave propagation space into four coupled effective cavities. As the mass ratio of the inner shell increases, new spectral peaks enter from the high-frequency side of the echo spectrum; the second and later peaks shift toward higher frequencies; and the lowest-frequency peak first shifts toward lower frequencies and then returns to its $q=0$ position. We call this variation pattern spectral-peak queueing (SQ). Its existence suggests that GW echoes can be used as probes for the internal structure of compact objects under consideration.

Our work clarifies the origin of enhanced symmetry of near horizon geometries. We relate this property to an existence of specific foliation by non-expanding horizons. The existence of this foliation can be shown in any spacetime satisfying null convergence condition. Our proof is geometric and based on analyzing null hypersurfaces in near horizon geometry spacetimes.

Strong magnetic fields affect particle dynamics through two distinct channels: gravitational backreaction deforms the spacetime, while direct coupling to an intrinsic magnetic moment depends on the relative orientation of the field and the dipole. We disentangle these effects by studying equatorial orbits and near-horizon collisions of electrically neutral magnetized particles in the exact Kerr–Bertotti–Robinson spacetime. The field-induced geometric deformation shifts turning points and circular-orbit domains and can eliminate a finite effective-potential well together with its bound orbits. Even without direct dipole coupling, it can also offset the Kerr periapsis advance and produce a finite-radius zero-precession orbit. Direct dipole coupling breaks the symmetry under magnetic-field reversal and shifts the radius, energy, and angular momentum of the innermost stable circular orbit in an orientation-dependent manner. The formal ultrarelativistic endpoints of these orbit branches, however, remain fixed by the background geometry and approach circular null orbits. In the Bañados–Silk–West mechanism, both magnetic effects modify finite-radius potential barriers and hence the ability of a critical particle to reach the near-horizon collision region. In the representative nonzero-field cases examined here, an exactly critical particle released from infinity is blocked before reaching an extremal horizon, although a locally admissible collision between critical and usual particles can still produce unbounded center-of-mass energy. Finite dipole coupling shifts the barriers but does not change the leading near-horizon divergence. Near a nonextremal horizon, an exactly critical particle is excluded and the collision energy remains finite.

Gravitational waves offer a unique opportunity to solve the Hubble tension. In order to do so, we have to extract as much information as possible from cross correlating gravitational wave events (used as "dark sirens") with incomplete galaxy catalogs. Traditional methods assume a uniform in comoving volume distribution for galaxies missing from the catalogs, which neglects the fact that galaxies tend to cluster, leading to less precise and possibly biased posteriors. In this paper, we introduce a new method for accounting for galaxy clustering when dealing with an incomplete galaxy catalog, by adding back galaxies to the incomplete catalog and distributing them in pixels according to the correlation function $\xi(r)$. We find that our method drastically improves on traditional ones when the galaxy catalog is only $1\%-10\%$ complete, leading to posteriors that are between 2 and 4 times as precise, depending on the completeness fraction, without introducing any biases. Our method produces results comparable to traditional methods at extremely low catalog completeness fractions (<0.5%) or for very high uncertainties in the recovered luminosity distance and sky localization of the gravitational wave events.

We derive a $2d$ effective action for semi-classical AdS$_3$ gravity with an EOW brane of arbitrary tension by solving the radial Hamiltonian flow in a derivative expansion. Interpreting the radial flow as an RG flow, the effective theory is identified with a $T\bar T$-like deformed CFT. This leads us to propose that the holographic dual for semi-classical AdS$_3$ gravity with Neumann or conformal boundary conditions is obtained by setting the $T\bar T$-like deformed CFT free. We verify our proposal explicitly for saddles corresponding to $(A)dS_2$ branes in empty AdS$_3$. We discuss three useful ways to decompose the effective brane theory into a matter sector ($T\bar T$-deformed, $T\bar T$-like deformed, and undeformed CFT, respectively) and a corresponding braneworld gravity sector. In particular, the split into $T\bar T$-deformed CFT coupled to $T\bar T$-like deformed Liouville gravity directly extends the Liouville description of the integrated Weyl anomaly into the bulk. The effective action is then used to perform an island-rule calculation for a non-asymptotic brane in an AdS/bCFT set-up, finding exact agreement with the Ryu-Takayanagi result. This extends previous holographic checks on the island rule to non-asymptotic regimes of application, as well as provides a Wald entropy interpretation for $T\bar T$ entanglement. Finally, we relate our effective theory and its higher derivative corrections to AdS$_3$ gravity with a fluctuating radial cutoff by explicit calculation of the on-shell action.

We study the algebraic and differential structure of the Riemann curvature tensor of the higher-dimensional Kerr-NUT-(A)dS spaces, motivated by the eventual goal of finding an IDEAL (Intrinsic, Deductive, Explicit and ALgorithmic) characterization of this family of metrics. The special geometry of these spaces is governed by the principal tensor $h_{ab}$, a non-degenerate closed conformal Killing-Yano $2$-form, whose existence singles out the Kerr-NUT-(A)dS family; we therefore focus on the algebraic relationship between the Riemann curvature $R_{abcd}$ and $h_{ab}$. In our investigations we encountered an obstruction, which results in a no-go theorem: no non-trivial $2$-form, including $h_{ab}$ itself, can be constructed covariantly from the undifferentiated Riemann tensor alone. Despite that, we do characterize the family of Riemann-symmetric tensors that could be the curvature of a Kerr-NUT-(A)dS metric by an algebraic and a differential condition, stemming from the integrability of the defining equation of $h_{ab}$ and the second Bianchi identity. Our calculations apply in all higher dimensions, which becomes feasible by a judicious application of representation theoretic techniques related to a semi-direct product group $U(1)^n\rtimes S_n$ that stabilizes $h_{ab}$.

Within the framework of quasi-topological gravity, we systematically investigate the correspondences among three classes of observables—the shadow, the quasinormal modes, and the graybody factors—of regular black holes in $D = 5$ dimensions. Using the WKB approximation and GrayHawk numerical integration, we test the applicability of the GBF–QNM correspondence and the shadow–GBF correspondence in the low-mode ($l=2$) and higher-dimensions ($D=5$): the difference between the GBF–QNM correspondence and the numerical results remains small in magnitude; we apply the known Langer correction (replacing $l$ by the effective angular momentum $\kappa = \sqrt{l(l+D-3)} \simeq l + (D-3)/2$), which reduces the error of the shadow–GBF correspondence at low modes to a level comparable with that of the GBF–QNM correspondence. Our work extends the shadow–GBF correspondence to higher-dimensional regular black holes, providing a viable route to predict the black hole spectrum and the Hawking radiation profile from a single observable, and thereby to realize multi-messenger tests of gravity.