This thesis deals with the problems of exploration and map construction of a dangerous network by mobile agents, and it introduces new general mechanisms for inter-agent communication, which could be applied to other mobile agents' problems. A dangerous network contains a harmful process called Black Hole that destroys all agents entering the node where it resides, without leaving any observable trace. The task for the agents, which are moving asynchronously, is to construct a map of the network with edges incident on the black hole unambiguously identified. Two types of communication mechanisms are considered: whiteboards and tokens. In the whiteboard model every node provides a shared memory on which agents can read and write. When communication occurs through tokens, instead, the agents have some pebbles that can be placed on and picked up from the nodes. Four different costs for comparing the efficiency of the protocols are taken into account: the number of agents required, the number of moves performed, the size of the whiteboard (or the token capacity at a node), and time. The black hole search problem is considered first in ring networks with whiteboards, and optimal exact time and move complexities are established improving all existing results. The same problem is then studied in arbitrary unknown graphs and it is solved in the token model by using a constant number of tokens in total. The protocol improves on existing results and is based on a novel technique for communicating using tokens. Finally, the new method of communicating using tokens described in the context of black hole search is generalized to propose a novel communication mechanism among the agents that could possibly be employed for any distributed algorithm by mobile agents.

The project concerns the study of the interplay among quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, in isolated quantum systems. The goal of this research is to improve our understanding of the concept of thermal equilibrium in quantum systems. First, I investigated the role played by observables and measurements in the emergence of thermal behaviour. This led to a new notion of thermal equilibrium which is specific for a given observable, rather than for the whole state of the system. The equilibrium picture that emerges is a generalization of statistical mechanics in which we are not interested in the state of the system but only in the outcome of the measurement process. I investigated how this picture relates to one of the most promising approaches for the emergence of thermal behaviour in quantum systems: the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis. Then, I applied the results to study the equilibrium properties of peculiar quantum systems, which are known to escape thermalization: the many-body localised systems. Despite the localization phenomenon, which prevents thermalization of subsystems, I was able to show that we can still use the predictions of statistical mechanics to describe the equilibrium of some observables. Moreover, the intuition developed in the process led me to propose an experimentally accessible way to unravel the interacting nature of many-body localised systems. Then, I exploited the "Concentration of Measure" and the related "Typicality Arguments" to study the macroscopic properties of the basis states in a tentative theory of quantum gravity: Loop Quantum Gravity. These techniques were previously used to explain why the thermal behaviour in quantum systems is such an ubiquitous phenomenon at the macroscopic scale. I focused on the local properties, their thermodynamic behaviour and interplay with the semiclassical limit. The ultimate goal of this line of research is to give a quantum description of a black hole which is consistent with the expected semiclassical behaviour. This was motivated by the necessity to understand, from a quantum gravity perspective, how and why an horizon exhibits thermal properties.

abstract: This thesis explores the different aspects of higher curvature gravity. The "membrane paradigm" of black holes in Einstein gravity is extended to black holes in f(R) gravity and it is shown that the higher curvature effects of f(R) gravity causes the membrane fluid to become non-Newtonian. Next a modification of the null energy condition in gravity is provided. The purpose of the null energy condition is to filter out ill-behaved theories containing ghosts. Conformal transformations, which are simple redefinitions of the spacetime, introduces serious violations of the null energy condition. This violation is shown to be spurious and a prescription for obtaining a modified null energy condition, based on the universality of the second law of thermodynamics, is provided. The thermodynamic properties of the black holes are further explored using merger of extremal black holes whose horizon entropy has topological contributions coming from the higher curvature Gauss-Bonnet term. The analysis refutes the prevalent belief in the literature that the second law of black hole thermodynamics is violated in the presence of the Gauss-Bonnet term in four dimensions. Subsequently a specific class of higher derivative scalar field theories called the galileons are obtained from a Kaluza-Klein reduction of Gauss-Bonnet gravity. Galileons are null energy condition violating theories which lead to violations of the second law of thermodynamics of black holes. These higher derivative scalar field theories which are non-minimally coupled to gravity required the development of a generalized method for obtaining the equations of motion. Utilizing this generalized method, it is shown that the inclusion of the Gauss-Bonnet term made the theory of gravity to become higher derivative, which makes it difficult to make any statements about the connection between the violation of the second law of thermodynamics and the galileon fields. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Physics 2014

Essa dissertação consiste de uma revisão dos resultados clássicos sobre a termodinâmica de buracos negros bem como de uma análise crítica das extensões recentes da relação entre a termodinâmica e a dinâmica gravitacional e suas implicações. / This dissertation consists of a revision of the classical results concerning the thermodynamics of black holes as well as a critical analysis of the recent extensions of the relationship between thermodynamics and the gravitational dynamics and its implications.

Dans cette thèse, nous étudions la structure asymptotique de la gravité à trois dimensions d’espace-temps avec et sans constante cosmologique.La première partie de la thèse présente en détails les propriétés fondamentales de la gravité à trois dimensions pour des espaces à constante cosmologique négative, ou espaces de types Anti-de Sitter (AdS). Nous introduisons le formalisme de Chern-Simons pour la gravité en utilisant la formulation dite du premier ordre pour cette dernière. Nous présentons également les conditions aux bords dites de Brown-Henneaux et le calcul associé de l’algèbre des charges de surface. Enfin, nous décrivons les étapes de la réduction du modèle de Chern-Simons à un modèle de Wess-Zumino-Witten puis à celui d’une théorie de Liouville. La relevance de cette théorie dans le calcul microscopique de l’entropie d’un trou noir à trois dimensions est également discutée.La seconde partie de la thèse contient les contributions originales. Tout d’abord, nous étendons l’analyse de la dynamique asymptotique de la supergravité à trois dimensions au cas d’une constante cosmologique nulle. Nous montrons que l’algèbre des charges de surface associée est une extension supersymétrique de l’algèbre BMS, et construisons la théorie bidimensionnelle située au bord de l’espace-temps qui possède cette symétrie. Le second résultat est l’obtention d’une symétrie de dimension infinie au voisinage de l’horizon d’événements d’un trou noir tridimensionnel non extrême. Troisièmement, nous discutions le cas d’une constante cosmologique positive et montrons l’existence d’une théorie de Liouville euclidienne duale à la gravité d’Einstein avec des conditions aux bords de Dirichlet dans le patch statique. Enfin, nous explorons un autre cadre dans lequel des symétries de dimension infinie apparaissent pour des espaces temps qui non sont pas du type Anti-de Sitter. Nous considérons pour cela des déformations de ces derniers, connus sous le nom d’espaces-temps Warped Anti-de Sitter. Nous montrons que ces déformations admettent une algèbre de surface donnée par une somme semi-direct entre une algèbre de Virasoro et une algèbre affine de Kac-Moody, avec extensions centrales non nulles. Nous montrons que les configurations du trou noir hôte des espaces-temps Warped s’organisent en termes de deux algèbres de Virasoro. Nous identifions les générateurs associés qui décrivent les représentations de la théorie duale et, en appliquant une formule de Cardy, nous prouvons qu’un calcul microscopique reproduit correctement l’entropie de ces trous noirs. Nous étendons ce résultat à des conditions aux bords plus générales qui incluent de nouvelles solutions associés à des degrés de liberté locaux, des gravitons massifs contenus dans le volume d’espace-temps. / Doctorat en Sciences / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

We show the scattering of electromagnetic radiation on a rotating cylinder and a rotating sphere using formalism of the vector spherical harmonics in this thesis. If a specific condition is satisfied then we can observe the rotational superradiance, phenomena originally discovered by Y. B. Zel'dovich in 1970s saying that the radiation can gain power by scattering on a rotating body. In this particular case there is an underlying principle of the rotational superradiance, the energy dissipation in the form of Joule heating created due to the induction of surface currents on the conductor. Superradiance can occur in the radiation scattering on the rotating black hole background, although there is no dissipation present. We summarize the results of scattering on the Kerr black hole from the literature, including an application called Black hole bomb, when the black hole is enclosed into a perfectly reflecting mirror. We show that for the lowest modes of the radiation at specific intervals the general relativity results can be approximated by scattering on the flat spacetime.

The flexibility of Mobile Ad hoc networks (MANET) and its characteristics introduce new security risks. One possible attack is the Black Hole attack which received recent attention. In the Black Hole attack, a malicious node uses the routing protocol to declare itself as having the shortest path to the node whose packets it wants to intercept. It is needed to understand this risk with a view to extract preventive and corrective protections against it. We introduce an approach that could stop this attack from happening in such a network by using an algorithm which controls the communications between nodes and let each node becomes identified and authorized in a group of nodes. In this algorithm, stable nodes, which called leaders, are responsible for routing and forwarding packets from source to destination nodes. This research reviews the black hole attack, and, explains the algorithm that helps throughput to be increased as a consequence. / Graduate / manar.alnaghes@hotmail.com

Closure phases along different baseline triangles carry a large amount of information regarding the structures of the images of black holes in interferometric observations with the Event Horizon Telescope. We use long time span, high cadence, GRMHD+radiative transfer models of Sgr A* to investigate the expected variability of closure phases in such observations. We find that, in general, closure phases along small baseline triangles show little variability, except in the cases when one of the triangle vertices crosses one of the small regions of low visibility amplitude. The closure phase variability increases with the size of the baseline triangle, as larger baselines probe the small-scale structures of the images, which are highly variable. On average, the funnel-dominated MAD models show less closure phase variability than the disk-dominated SANE models, even in the large baseline triangles, because the images from the latter are more sensitive to the turbulence in the accretion flow. Our results suggest that image reconstruction techniques need to explicitly take into account the closure phase variability, especially if the quality and quantity of data allow for a detailed characterization of the nature of variability. This also implies that, if image reconstruction techniques that rely on the assumption of a static image are utilized, regions of the u-v space that show a high level of variability will need to be identified and excised.

I study linear waves on higher dimensional Schwarzschild black holes and Schwarzschild de Sitter spacetimes. In the first part of this thesis two decay results are proven for general finite energy solutions to the linear wave equation on higher dimensional Schwarzschild black holes. I establish uniform energy decay and improved interior first order energy decay in all dimensions with rates in accordance with the 3 + 1-dimensional case. The method of proof departs from earlier work on this problem. I apply and extend the new physical space approach to decay of Dafermos and Rodnianski. An integrated local energy decay estimate for the wave equation on higher dimensional Schwarzschild black holes is proven. In the second part of this thesis the global study of solutions to the linear wave equation on expanding de Sitter and Schwarzschild de Sitter spacetimes is initiated. I show that finite energy solutions to the initial value problem are globally bounded and have a limit on the future boundary that can be viewed as a function on the standard cylinder. Both problems are related to the Cauchy problem in General Relativity.

This thesis deals with the problems of exploration and map construction of a dangerous network by mobile agents, and it introduces new general mechanisms for inter-agent communication, which could be applied to other mobile agents' problems. A dangerous network contains a harmful process called Black Hole that destroys all agents entering the node where it resides, without leaving any observable trace. The task for the agents, which are moving asynchronously, is to construct a map of the network with edges incident on the black hole unambiguously identified. Two types of communication mechanisms are considered: whiteboards and tokens. In the whiteboard model every node provides a shared memory on which agents can read and write. When communication occurs through tokens, instead, the agents have some pebbles that can be placed on and picked up from the nodes. Four different costs for comparing the efficiency of the protocols are taken into account: the number of agents required, the number of moves performed, the size of the whiteboard (or the token capacity at a node), and time. The black hole search problem is considered first in ring networks with whiteboards, and optimal exact time and move complexities are established improving all existing results. The same problem is then studied in arbitrary unknown graphs and it is solved in the token model by using a constant number of tokens in total. The protocol improves on existing results and is based on a novel technique for communicating using tokens. Finally, the new method of communicating using tokens described in the context of black hole search is generalized to propose a novel communication mechanism among the agents that could possibly be employed for any distributed algorithm by mobile agents.