Constructing Neutron Stars with a Gravitational Higgs Mechanism
arXiv:1708.02113 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.97.064013
Abstract
In scalar-tensor theories, spontaneous scalarization is a phase transition that can occur in ultra-dense environments such as neutron stars. The scalar field develops a non-trivial configuration once the stars exceeds a compactness threshold. We recently pointed out that, if the scalar exhibits some additional coupling to matter, it could give rise to significantly different microphysics in these environments. In this work we study, at the non-perturbative level, a toy model in which the photon is given a large mass when spontaneous scalarization occurs. Our results demonstrate clearly the effectiveness of spontaneous scalarization as a Higgs-like mechanism in neutron stars.
8 pages, 5 figures
References in corpus (8)
- GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral
- A Massive Pulsar in a Compact Relativistic Binary
- Strong constraints on cosmological gravity from GW170817 and GRB 170817A
- The relativistic pulsar-white dwarf binary PSR J1738+0333 II. The most stringent test of scalar-tensor gravity
- Spontaneous Scalarization with Massive Fields
- Theory of gravitation theories: a no-progress report
- Gravity and Scalar Fields
- Gravitational Higgs Mechanism in Neutron Star Interiors
Cited by in corpus (7)
- Spontaneous scalarization
- Spontaneous scalarization in generalised scalar-tensor theory
- Compact object scalarization with general relativity as a cosmic attractor
- Neutron Star Structure in the Presence of Nonminimally Coupled Scalar Fields
- Spontaneous growth of gauge fields in gravity through the Higgs mechanism
- The gravitational Higgs mechanism and resulting smoking gun effects
- The ghost of vector fields in compact stars