Constructing neutron stars with a gravitational Higgs mechanism

Franchini, Nicola; Coates, Andrew; Sotiriou, Thomas P.

doi:10.1103/physrevd.97.064013

Cited by 9 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Spontaneous vectorization theories with restored gauge symmetry were also conceived using the Higgs mechanism rather than the Stueckelberg mechanism [80], inspired by the gravitational Higgs mechanism [81][82][83]. However, this theory [80] also has divergent terms in its field equations akin to Eq.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ghost of vector fields in compact stars

et al. 2022

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Spontaneous scalarization is a mechanism that allows a scalar field to go undetected in weak gravity environments and yet develop a nontrivial configuration in strongly gravitating systems. At the perturbative level it manifests as a tachyonic instability around spacetimes that solve Einstein's equations. The endpoint of this instability is a nontrivial scalar field configuration that can significantly modify a compact object's structure and can produce observational signatures of the scalar field's presence. Does such a mechanism exists for vector fields? Here we revisit the model that constitutes the most straightforward generalization of the original scalarization model to a vector field and perform a perturbative analysis. We show that a ghost appears as soon as the square of the naive effective mass squared becomes negative anywhere. This result poses a serious obstacle in generalizing spontaneous scalarization to vector fields.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ghost of vector fields in compact stars

et al. 2022

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“…Spontaneous vectorization theories with restored gauge symmetry were also conceived using the Higgs mechanism rather than the Stueckelberg mechanism [79], inspired by the gravitational Higgs mechanism [80][81][82]. However, this theory [79] also has divergent terms in its field equations akin to Eq.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ghost of vector fields in compact stars

Silva,

Coates,

Ramazanoğlu

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Spontaneous scalarization is a mechanism that allows a scalar field to go undetected in weak gravity environments and yet develop a nontrivial configuration in strongly gravitating systems. At the perturbative level it manifests as a tachyonic instability around spacetimes that solve Einstein's equations. The end-point of this instability is a nontrivial scalar field configuration that can significantly modify a compact object's structure and can produce observational signatures of the scalar field's presence. Does such a mechanism exists for vector fields? Here we revisit the model that constitutes the most straightforward generalization of the original scalarization model to a vector field and perform a perturbative analysis. We show that a ghost appears as soon as the square of the naive effective mass squared becomes negative anywhere. This result poses a serious obstacle in generalizing spontaneous scalarization to vector fields.

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“…Using a toy model, it has been shown in [13] and [14] that spontaneous scalarization in neutron stars can lead to violations of the WEP in neutron star interiors. The model used to demonstrate this is a combination of a scalar-tensor Lagrangian in the Einstein frame and the Lagrangian of a U (1) field, A µ , which we shall take to be the electromagnetic field (in this section we use units defined by c = G = = 1):…”

Section: Gravitational Higgs Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A = A( φφ) and we take exp 1 2 β φφ with constant β . The field equations obtained by varying the action (8) are [13,14]:…”

Section: Gravitational Higgs Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The gravitational Higgs mechanism and resulting smoking gun effects

Krall,

Coates,

Kokkotas

2020

Preprint

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Recently, a toy model was introduced to demonstrate that screening mechanisms in alternative theories of gravitation can hide additional effects. In this model a scalar field is charged under a U (1) symmetry. In sufficiently compact objects the scalar field spontaneously grows, i.e. the object scalarizes, spontaneously breaking the U (1) symmetry. Exactly as in the U (1) Higgs mechanism this leads to the emergence of a mass for the gauge field.The aim of this paper is to provide an example of the physical consequences if we consider this toy model as a prototype of Weak Equivalence Principle (WEP) violations. We model neutron stars with a dipolar magnetic field to compare the magnetic field behaviour of stars in Einstein-Maxwell theory on the one hand and in scalar-tensor theory with the, so-called, gravitational Higgs mechanism on the other hand.

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Constructing neutron stars with a gravitational Higgs mechanism

Cited by 9 publications

References 23 publications

Ghost of vector fields in compact stars

Ghost of vector fields in compact stars

The ghost of vector fields in compact stars

The gravitational Higgs mechanism and resulting smoking gun effects

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