Stephen W. Hawking, Malcolm J. Perry, Andrew Strominger

It is shown that black hole spacetimes in classical Einstein gravity are characterized by, in addition to their ADM mass M , momentum P ~ , angular momentum J ~ and ~ an infinite head of supertranslation hair. The distinct black holes boost charge K, are distinguished by classical superrotation charges measured at infinity. Solutions with supertranslation hair are diffeomorphic to the Schwarzschild spacetime, but the diffeomorphisms are part of the BMS subgroup and act nontrivially on the physical phase space. It is shown that a black hole can be supertranslated by throwing in an asymmetric shock wave. A leading-order Bondi-gauge expression is derived for the linearized horizon supertranslation charge and shown to generate, via the Dirac bracket, supertranslations on the linearized phase space of gravitational excitations of the horizon. The considerations of this paper are largely classical augmented by comments on their implications for the quantum theory.

A. Dodel, A. Mayinda, E. Oudot, A. Martin, P. Sekatski, J.-D. Bancal, N. Sangouard

We give a complete proposal showing how to detect the non-classical nature of photonic states with naked eyes as detectors. The enabling technology is a sub-poissonian photonic state that is obtained from single photons, displacement operations in phase space and basic non-photon number resolving detectors. We present a detailed statistical analysis of our proposal including imperfect photon creation and detection and a realistic model of the human eye. We conclude that a few tens of hours are sufficient to certify non-classical light with the human eye with a p-value of 10%.

Atsuhisa Ota

We newly re-interpret cosmic microwave background spectral distortions as solutions to the Boltzmann equation at second order. This approach makes it possible to solve the equation of the momentum dependent temperature perturbations explicitly. In addition, we define higher order spectral distortions systematically, assuming that the collision term is linear in the photon distribution functions. For example, we find the linear Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect whose momentum shape is different from the usual $y$ distortion, and show that the higher order spectral distortions are also generated as a result of the diffusion process in a language of higher order Boltzmann equations. The method may be applicable to a wider class of problems and has potential to give a general prescription to non-equilibrium physics.

Alexie Leauthaud, Shun Saito, Stefan Hilbert, Alexandre Barreira, Surhud More, Martin White, Shadab Alam, Peter Behroozi, Kevin Bundy, Jean Coupon, Thomas Erben, Catherine Heymans, Hendrik Hildebrandt, Rachel Mandelbaum, Lance Miller, Bruno Moraes, Maria E. S. Pereira, Sergio A. Rodriguez-Torres, Fabian Schmidt, Huan-Yuan Shan, Matteo Viel, Francisco Villaescusa-Navarro

We present high signal-to-noise galaxy-galaxy lensing measurements of the BOSS CMASS sample using 250 square degrees of weak lensing data from CFHTLenS and CS82. We compare this signal with predictions from mock catalogs trained to match observables including the stellar mass function and the projected and two dimensional clustering of CMASS. We show that the clustering of CMASS, together with standard models of the galaxy-halo connection, robustly predicts a lensing signal that is 20-40% larger than observed. Detailed tests show that our results are robust to a variety of systematic effects. Lowering the value of $S_{\rm 8}=\sigma_{\rm 8} \sqrt{\Omega_{\rm m}/0.3}$ compared to Planck2015 reconciles the lensing with clustering. However, given the scale of our measurement ($r<10$ $h^{-1}$ Mpc), other effects may also be at play and need to be taken into consideration. We explore the impact of baryon physics, assembly bias, massive neutrinos, and modifications to general relativity on $\Delta\Sigma$ and show that several of these effects may be non-negligible given the precision of our measurement. Disentangling cosmological effects from the details of the galaxy-halo connection, the effects of baryons, and massive neutrinos, is the next challenge facing joint lensing and clustering analyses. This is especially true in the context of large galaxy samples from Baryon Acoustic Oscillation surveys with precise measurements but complex selection functions.

Ashutosh Tripathi, Archana Sangwan, H. K. Jassal

In this paper, we constrain dark energy models using a compendium of observations at low redshifts. We consider the dark energy as a barotropic fluid, with the equation of state a constant as well the case where dark energy equation of state is a function of time. The observations considered here are Supernova Type Ia data, Baryonic Acoustic Oscillation data and Hubble parameter measurements. We compare constraints obtained from these data and also do a combined analysis. The combined observational constraints put strong limits on variation of dark energy energy density with redshift. For varying dark energy models, the range of parameters preferred by the supernova type Ia data is in tension with the other low redshift distance measurements.

Eloisa Bentivegna, Mikołaj Korzyński, Ian Hinder, Daniel Gerlicher

The apparent properties of distant objects encode information about the way the light they emit propagates to an observer, and therefore about the curvature of the underlying spacetime. Measuring the relationship between the redshift $z$ and the luminosity distance $D_{\rm L}$ of a standard candle, for example, yields information on the Universe's matter content. In practice, however, in order to decode this information the observer needs to make an assumption about the functional form of the $D_{\rm L}(z)$ relation; in other words, a cosmological model needs to be assumed. In this work, we use numerical-relativity simulations, equipped with a new ray-tracing module, to numerically obtain this relation for a few black-hole--lattice cosmologies and compare it to the well-known Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker case, as well as to other relevant cosmologies and to the Empty-Beam Approximation. We find that the latter provides the best estimate of the luminosity distance and formulate a simple argument to account for this agreement. We also find that a Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker model can reproduce this observable exactly, as long as a time-dependent cosmological constant is included in the fit. Finally, the dependence of these results on the lattice mass-to-spacing ratio $\mu$ is discussed: we discover that, unlike the expansion rate, the $D_{\rm L}(z)$ relation in a black-hole lattice does not tend to that measured in the corresponding continuum spacetime as $\mu \to 0$.