We examine the steady-state spherically symmetric accretion of relativistic fluids, with a polytropic equation of state, onto a higher dimensional Schwarzschild black hole. The mass accretion rate, critical radius, and flow parameters are determined and compared with results obtained in standard four dimensions. The accretion rate, $\dot{M}$, is an explicit function of the black hole mass, $M$, as well as the gas boundary conditions and the dimensionality, $D$, of the spacetime. We also find the asymptotic compression ratios and temperature profiles below the accretion radius and at the event horizon. This analysis is a generalization of Michel's solution to higher dimensions and of the Newtonian expressions of Giddings and Mangano which considers the accretion of TeV black holes.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review

The inclusion of dissipative effects in cosmic fluids modifies their clustering properties and could have observable effects on the formation of large scale structures. We analyse the evolution of density perturbations of cold dark matter endowed with causal bulk viscosity. The perturbative analysis is carried out in the Newtonian approximation and the bulk viscosity is described by the causal Israel-Stewart (IS) theory. In contrast to the non-causal Eckart theory, we obtain a third order evolution equation for the density contrast that depends on three free parameters. For certain parameter values, the density contrast and growth factor in IS mimic their behaviour in ΛCDM when z ≥ 1. Interestingly, and contrary to intuition, certain sets of parameters lead to an increase of the clustering.

We obtain a class of solutions to the Einstein-Maxwell equations describing charged static spheres. Upon specifying particular forms for one of the gravitational potentials and the electric field intensity, the condition for pressure isotropy is transformed into a hypergeometric equation with two free parameters. For particular parameter values we recover uncharged solutions corresponding to specific neutron star models. We find two charged solutions in terms of elementary functions for particular parameter values. The first charged model is physically reasonable and the metric functions and thermodynamic variables are well behaved. The second charged model admits a negative energy density and violates the energy conditions.

We examine the accretion of matter onto a black hole in scalar-tensor-vector gravity (STVG).The gravitational constant is G = G N (1 + α) where α is a parameter taken to be constant for static black holes in the theory. The STVG black hole is spherically symmetric and characterised by two event horizons. The matter falling into the black hole obeys the polytrope equation of state and passes through two critical points before entering the outer horizon. We obtain analytical expressions for the mass accretion rate as well as for the outer critical point, critical velocity and critical sound speed. Our results complement existing strong field tests like lensing and orbital motion and could be used in conjunction to determine observational constraints on STVG. * Electronic address: ajohn@sun.ac.za 1 arXiv:1603.09425v1 [gr-qc]