Relativistic stars in bigravity theory

Abstract

Assuming static and spherically symmetric spacetimes in the ghost-free bigravity theory, we find a relativistic star solution, which is very close to that in general relativity. The coupling constants are classified into two classes: Class [I] and Class [II]. Although the Vainshtein screening mechanism is found in the weak gravitational field for both classes, we find that there is no regular solution beyond the critical value of the compactness in Class [I]. This implies that the maximum mass of a neutron star in Class [I] becomes much smaller than that in GR. On the other hand, for the solution in Class [II], the Vainshtein screening mechanism works well even in a relativistic star and the result in GR is recovered.

21 pages, 18 figures. v2: minor improvements, references added