2021/10/31 by Hector O. Silva, Andrew Coates, Fethi M. Ramazanoğlu +1
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Classical mechanics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Einstein #Field (mathematics) #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Generalization #Geometry #Instability #Mathematical analysis #Mathematical physics #Mathematics #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Pure mathematics #Quantum mechanics #Scalar (mathematics) #Scalar field #Theoretical physics #Vector field #gr-qc #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.105.024046
published as Phys. Rev. D 105, 024046 (2022) · 12 pages. v2: corrections to Eqs. (23)-(24), new references. v3: matches published version
arxiv created 2022/01/20 · openalex publication_date 2022/01/20 · arxiv updated 2022/03/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Spontaneous scalarization is a mechanism that allows a scalar field to go undetected in weak gravity environments and yet develop a nontrivial configuration in strongly gravitating systems. At the perturbative level it manifests as a tachyonic instability around spacetimes that solve Einstein's equations. The endpoint of this instability is a nontrivial scalar field configuration that can significantly modify a compact object's structure and can produce observational signatures of the scalar field's presence. Does such a mechanism exists for vector fields? Here we revisit the model that constitutes the most straightforward generalization of the original scalarization model to a vector field and perform a perturbative analysis. We show that a ghost appears as soon as the square of the naive effective mass squared becomes negative anywhere. This result poses a serious obstacle in generalizing spontaneous scalarization to vector fields.