Highly compact neutron stars in scalar-tensor theories of gravity: Spontaneous scalarization versus gravitational collapse
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Scalar-tensor theories of gravity are extensions of general relativity (GR) including an extra, nonminimally coupled scalar degree of freedom. A wide class of these theories, albeit indistinguishable from GR in the weak field regime, predicts a radically different phenomenology for neutron stars, due to a nonperturbative, strong-field effect referred to as spontaneous scalarization. This effect is known to occur in theories where the effective linear coupling ${\ensuremath{\beta}}_{0}$ between the scalar and matter fields is sufficiently negative, i.e. ${\ensuremath{\beta}}_{0}\ensuremath{\lesssim}\ensuremath{-}4.35$, and has been strongly constrained by pulsar timing observations. In the test-field approximation, spontaneous scalarization manifests itself as a tachyonic-like instability. Recently, it was argued that, in theories where ${\ensuremath{\beta}}_{0}>0$, a similar instability would be triggered by sufficiently compact neutron stars obeying realistic equations of state. In this work we investigate the end state of this instability for some representative coupling functions with ${\ensuremath{\beta}}_{0}>0$. This is done both through an energy balance analysis of the existing equilibrium configurations, and by numerically determining the nonlinear Cauchy development of unstable initial data. We find that, contrary to the ${\ensuremath{\beta}}_{0}<0$ case, the final state of the instability is highly sensitive to the details of the coupling function, varying from gravitational collapse to spontaneous scalarization. In particular, we show, for the first time, that spontaneous scalarization can happen in theories with ${\ensuremath{\beta}}_{0}>0$, which could give rise to novel astrophysical tests of the theory of gravity.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".