We construct electrically charged Q-balls and boson stars in a model with a scalar self-interaction potential resulting from gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking. We discuss the properties of these solutions in detail and emphasize the differences t
o the uncharged case. We observe that Q-balls can only be constructed up to a maximal value of the charge of the scalar field, while for boson stars the interplay between the attractive gravitational force and the repulsive electromagnetic force determines their behaviour. We find that the vacuum is stable with respect to pair production in the presence of our charged boson stars. We also study the motion of charged, massive test particles in the space-time of boson stars. We find that in contrast to charged black holes the motion of charged test particles in charged boson star space-times is planar, but that the presence of the scalar field plays a crucial role for the qualitative features of the trajectories. Applications of this test particle motion can be made in the study of extreme-mass ratio inspirals (EMRIs) as well as astrophysical plasmas relevant e.g. in the formation of accretion discs and polar jets of compact objects.
We study the geodesic motion of test particles in the space-time of non-compact boson stars. These objects are made of a self-interacting scalar field and -- depending on the scalar fields mass -- can be as dense as neutron stars or even black holes.
In contrast to the former these objects do not contain a well-defined surface, while in contrast to the latter the space-time of boson stars is globally regular, can -- however -- only be given numerically. Hence, the geodesic equation also has to be studied numerically. We discuss the possible orbits for massive and massless test particles and classify them according to the particles energy and angular momentum. The space-time of a boson star approaches the Schwarzschild space-time asymptotically, however deviates strongly from it close to the center of the star. As a consequence, we find additional bound orbits of massive test particles close to the center of the star that are not present in the Schwarzschild case. Our results can be used to make predictions about extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) and we hence compare our results to recent observational data of the stars orbiting Sagittarius A* - the radiosource at the center of our own galaxy.
