The intrinsic pathology of self-interacting vector fields
arXiv:2205.07784 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.151103
Abstract
We show that self-interacting vector field theories exhibit unphysical behaviour even when they are not coupled to any external field. This means any theory featuring such vectors is in danger of being unphysical, an alarming prospect for many proposals in cosmology, gravity, high energy physics and beyond. The problem arises when vector fields with healthy configurations naturally reach a point where time evolution is mathematically ill-defined. We develop tools to easily identify this issue, and provide a simple and unifying framework to investigate it.
arXiv comment5+4 pages, 3+2 figures. Minor changes to bring into line with published version
References in corpus (32)
- The Dynamics of General Relativity
- Causality, Analyticity and an IR Obstruction to UV Completion
- Evidence for light-by-light scattering in heavy-ion collisions with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
- Generalization of the Proca Action
- Observing light-by-light scattering at the Large Hadron Collider
- Cosmology in generalized Proca theories
- Generalized Proca action for an Abelian vector field
- Hyperboloidal foliations and scri-fixing
- Continuum and Discrete Initial-Boundary-Value Problems and Einstein's Field Equations
- The imitation game: Proca stars that can mimic the Schwarzschild shadow
- Beyond generalized Proca theories
- Well-posed formulation of Lovelock and Horndeski theories
- Vector theories in cosmology
- Positivity Bounds for Massive Spin-1 and Spin-2 Fields
- Extended vector-tensor theories
- Spontaneous growth of vector fields in gravity
- Black holes in vector-tensor theories
- Nonlinear interactions between black holes and Proca fields
- Screening fifth forces in generalized Proca theories
- Aspects of Nonlinear Effect on Black Hole Superradiance
- Relativistic stars in vector-tensor theories
- The problem with Proca: ghost instabilities in self-interacting vector fields
- Electromagnetism and hidden vector fields in modified gravity theories: spontaneous and induced vectorization
- Vector boson star solutions with a quartic order self-interaction
- Destabilization of black holes and stars by generalized Proca fields
- Can black hole superradiance be induced by galactic plasmas?
- Vortex String Formation in Black Hole Superradiance of a Dark Photon with the Higgs Mechanism
- A singularity problem for interacting massive vectors
- Spontaneously vectorized Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet black holes
- Instability of vectorized stars
- Proca Q Balls and their Coupling to Gravity
- Proca Q Tubes and their Coupling to Gravity