Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userDegeneracy, matter coupling, and disformal transformations in scalar-tensor theories
111
0
0.0
(
0
)
Added by
Sebastian Garcia-Saenz
Publication date
2020
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
Degenerate scalar-tensor theories of gravity extend general relativity by a single degree of freedom, despite their equations of motion being higher than second order. In some cases, this is a mere consequence of a disformal field redefinition carried out in a non-degenerate theory. More generally, this is made possible by the existence of an additional constraint that removes the would-be ghost. It has been noted that this constraint can be thwarted when the coupling to matter involves time derivatives of the metric, which results in a modification of the canonical momenta of the gravitational sector. In this note we expand on this issue by analyzing the precise ways in which the extra degree of freedom may reappear upon minimal coupling to matter. Specifically, we study examples of matter sectors that lead either to a direct loss of the special constraint or to a failure to generate a pair of secondary constraints. We also discuss the recurrence of the extra degree of freedom using the language of disformal transformations in particular for what concerns veiled gravity. On the positive side, we show that the minimal coupling of spinor fields is healthy and does not spoil the additional constraint. We argue that this virtue of spinor fields to preserve the number of degrees of freedom in the presence of higher derivatives is actually very general and can be seen from the level decomposition of Grassmann-valued classical variables.
rate research
Read More
We study the equivalence principle and its violations by quantum effects in scalar-tensor theories that admit a conformal frame in which matter only couples to the spacetime metric. These theories possess Ward identities that guarantee the validity of the weak equivalence principle to all orders in the matter coupling constants. These Ward identities originate from a broken Weyl symmetry under which the scalar field transforms by a shift, and from the symmetry required to couple a massless spin two particle to matter (diffeomorphism invariance). But the same identities also predict violations of the weak equivalence principle relatively suppressed by at least two powers of the gravitational couplings, and imply that quantum corrections do not preserve the structure of the action of these theories. We illustrate our analysis with a set of specific examples for spin zero and spin half matter fields that show why matter couplings do respect the equivalence principle, and how the couplings to the gravitational scalar lead to the weak equivalence principle violations predicted by the Ward identities.
The final ringdown phase in a coalescence process is a valuable laboratory to test General Relativity and potentially constrain additional degrees of freedom in the gravitational sector. We introduce here an effective description for perturbations around spherically symmetric spacetimes in the context of scalar-tensor theories, which we apply to study quasi-normal modes for black holes with scalar hair. We derive the equations of motion governing the dynamics of both the polar and the axial modes in terms of the coefficients of the effective theory. Assuming the deviation of the background from Schwarzschild is small, we use the WKB method to introduce the notion of light ring expansion. This approximation is analogous to the slow-roll expansion used for inflation, and it allows us to express the quasinormal mode spectrum in terms of a small number of parameters. This work is a first step in describing, in a model independent way, how the scalar hair can affect the ringdown stage and leave signatures on the emitted gravitational wave signal. Potential signatures include the shifting of the quasi-normal spectrum, the breaking of isospectrality between polar and axial modes, and the existence of scalar radiation.
We discuss a field transformation from fields $psi_a$ to other fields $phi_i$ that involves derivatives, $phi_i = bar phi_i(psi_a, partial_alpha psi_a, ldots ;x^mu)$, and derive conditions for this transformation to be invertible, primarily focusing on the simplest case that the transformation maps between a pair of two fields and involves up to their first derivatives. General field transformation of this type changes number of degrees of freedom, hence for the transformation to be invertible, it must satisfy certain degeneracy conditions so that additional degrees of freedom do not appear. Our derivation of necessary and sufficient conditions for invertible transformation is based on the method of characteristics, which is used to count the number of independent solutions of a given differential equation. As applications of the invertibility conditions, we show some non-trivial examples of the invertible field transformations with derivatives, and also give a rigorous proof that a simple extension of the disformal transformation involving a second derivative of the scalar field is not invertible.
We show how the choice of an inflationary state that entangles scalar and tensor fluctuations affects the angular two-point correlation functions of the $T$, $E$, and $B$ modes of the cosmic microwave background. The propagators for a state starting with some general quadratic entanglement are solved exactly, leading to predictions for the primordial scalar-scalar, tensor-tensor, and scalar-tensor power spectra. These power spectra are expressed in terms of general functions that describe the entangling structure of the initial state relative to the standard Bunch-Davies vacuum. We illustrate how such a state would modify the angular correlations in the CMB with a simple example where the initial state is a small perturbation away from the Bunch-Davies state. Because the state breaks some of the rotational symmetries, the angular power spectra no longer need be strictly diagonal.
The Fe K_alpha fluorescent line at 6.4 keV is a powerful probe of the space-time metric in the vicinity of accreting compact objects. We investigated here how some alternative theories of gravity, namely Scalar tensor Theories, that invoke the presence of a non-minimally coupled scalar field and predict the existence of strongly scalarized neutron stars, change the expected line shape with respect to General Relativity. By taking into account both deviations from the general relativistic orbital dynamics of the accreting disk, where the Fe line originates, and the changes in the light propagation around the neutron star, we computed line shapes for various inclinations of the disk with respect to the observer. We found that both the intensity of the low energy tails and the position of the high energy edge of the line change. Moreover we verified that even if those changes are in general of the order of a few percent, they are potentially observable with the next generation of X-ray satellites.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
