Gravitational and Relativistic Physics

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Theories of relativistic dissipative fluids will be applied to study situations of astrophysical and experimental interest. Constraints relating the properties of fluid stability, causality, and hyperbolicity in these theories can be used to strengthen existing upper limits on the mass of neutron stars. The behavior of the theories when applied to a Fermi gas far from equilibrium will be studied; whether nonlinear effects destroy hyperbolicity in this case will be determined. These results will then be used to apply the fluid models to the study of relativistic fluid collisions, ranging from heavy ions to neutron stars. Present theories of relativistic dissipative superfluids have been shown to be physically unacceptable, as all equilibrium states within those theories are unstable. A newly proposed theory which seems (on the surface) to avoid this problem will be analyzed in detail, and its fundamental properties regarding stability, causality, and hyperbolicity analyzed. Extreme black holes, possessing degenerate event horizons and zero surface gravity, are currently playing a central role in work on black hole thermodynamics and the "information loss" puzzle of black hole evaporation. Using the methods developed by Anderson, Hiscock, and Samuel, the quantum effects of vacuum polarization on an extreme black hole's geometry and thermodynamics will be studied.