SearcharxivSearch

arXiv · 2303.03853

Non-relativistic stellar structure in higher-curvature gravity: systematic construction of solutions to the modified Lane-Emden equations

Abstract

We study the structure of static spherical stars made up of a non-relativistic polytropic fluid in linearized higher-curvature theories of gravity (HCG). We first formulate the modified Lane-Emden (LE) equation for the stellar profile function in a gauge-invariant manner, finding it boils down to a sixth order differential equation in the generic case of HCG, while it reduces to a fourth order equation in two special cases, reflecting the number of additional massive gravitons arising in each theory. Moreover, the existence of massive gravitons renders the nature of the boundary-value problem unlike the standard LE: some of the boundary conditions can no longer be formulated in terms of physical conditions at the stellar center alone, but some demands at the stellar surface necessarily come into play. We present a practical scheme for constructing solutions to such a problem and demonstrate how it works in the cases of the polytropic index n = 0 and 1, where analytical solutions to the modified LE equations exist. As physical outcomes, we clarify how the stellar radius, mass, and Yukawa charges depend on the theory parameters and how these observables are mutually related. Reasonable upper bounds on the Weyl-squared correction are obtained.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Shinpei Tonosaki, Tomoya Tachinami, Yuuiti Sendouda. 2023-03-07. Non-relativistic stellar structure in higher-curvature gravity: systematic construction of solutions to the modified Lane-Emden equations. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.108.024037

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

Electrovacuum Black Hole Uniqueness

We prove the black hole uniqueness conjecture in the axially symmetric, stationary, electrovacuum setting, subject to the refined asymptotic analysis of the associated singular harmonic maps, which includes an analyticity hypothesis at the axes. More precisely, it is shown that any asymptotically flat solution of the Einstein--Maxwell equations in this class, with more than one black hole horizon component is either: Majumdar--Papapetrou, up to a duality rotation, in which case all logarithmic angle defects vanish, or every finite axis rod logarithmic angle defect is strictly negative and hence every interaction force is strictly attractive. The proof extends the singular harmonic map method used for vacuum Kerr uniqueness in [18].

gr-qc

Constraining Modified Mass-to-Horizon Cosmology Through Primordial Inflationary Observables

We investigate slow-roll inflation in a modified cosmological framework inspired by a generalized mass-to-horizon relation (MHR), $M=\gamma {c^2 L^n}/{G}$, where $n$ is a real parameter and $\gamma$ a dimensional constant. Using Padmanabhan's emergence paradigm, we derive the modified Friedmann equations for a flat FRW universe and analyze the dynamics of a canonical scalar field (inflaton) under the slow-roll approximation. We study the resulting inflationary phenomenology for power-law and Starobinsky potentials. For power-law potentials, the MHR modification fails to reconcile these models with current CMB constraints on $r$ and $n_s$. In contrast, Starobinsky inflation exhibits significant sensitivity to deviations from $n=1$. A perturbative analysis ($n=1+\Delta$) yields corrections to inflationary observables. We observe that the scalar power-spectrum normalization, under a fixed-Starobinsky prescription, imposes the stringent constraint $0.960 \lesssim n \lesssim 1.040$ for $N=60$ efolds. This is considerably tighter than spectral-index bounds. Our results establish inflation, particularly Starobinsky-like models, as a sensitive probe of generalized horizon thermodynamics and departures from standard MHR scaling.

gr-qc

Improving the Sensitivity of Gravitational Wave Detection with Weighted Conformal Prediction

In the last decade, kilometre-scale interferometric gravitational-wave detectors have observed hundreds of compact binary mergers, the majority of which are binary black holes. However, the data are noise-dominated, and multiple independent search algorithms (pipelines) are used to enhance sensitivity and improve robustness. Rather than the standard approach of selecting the most significant pipeline output, we combine the outputs from all pipelines using a conformal prediction-based framework to provide statistically rigorous confidence estimates for candidate events. While combining pipelines improves sensitivity and ranking robustness, it requires a principled statistical framework that remains valid as data properties evolve across observing runs. A key challenge is distribution shifts between simulated datasets used for training and calibration and the real, unlabelled, observations used for testing, which can invalidate coverage guarantees and bias confidence estimates. In this work, we address this challenge by incorporating likelihood-ratio reweighting into our conformal prediction framework to account for covariate shift. Using mock datasets containing simulated signals, we demonstrate that weighted conformal prediction restores well-calibrated coverage under covariate shift and increases the confidence of events near the detection threshold, recovering true signals that would otherwise be missed.

gr-qc