Black holes and gravitational waves sourced by non-linear duality rotation-invariant conformal electromagnetic matter

TL;DR

This paper couples a nonlinear, duality- and conformal-invariant electromagnetic theory to gravity, revealing charged black holes with screening effects and gravitational waves, and analyzing photon birefringence.

Contribution

It introduces a novel nonlinear electromagnetic model with duality and conformal invariance coupled to gravity, leading to new black hole and gravitational wave solutions.

Findings

Black holes with Reissner-Nordström geometry and screening effects.

Existence of exact gravitational wave solutions.

Analysis of photon birefringence and optical metrics.

Abstract

Maxwell's equations are invariant under both duality rotations and conformal transformations. Recently Bandos, Lechner, Sorokin, and Townsend have found a nonlinear generalisation of electrodynamics which possesses both of these symmetries. We couple this theory to General Relativity and explore self-gravitating configurations with a clear physical interpretation. We find charged black holes and exact gravitational waves. The black hole geometry is Reissner-Nordstr\"om, however, the non-linearity parameter acts as a screening factor allowing extremal configurations where the mass of the black hole is smaller than its charge. Furthermore, we also discuss the phenomenon of birefringence and determine the optical metrics associated to the propagation of photons.