Information-Entropic Stability Bound for Compact Objects: Application to Q-Balls and the Chandrasekhar Limit of Polytropes

TL;DR

This paper introduces a measure called configurational entropy to analyze the stability of compact objects like Q-balls and white dwarfs, revealing that stability correlates with low CE and accurately predicting critical stability thresholds.

Contribution

It applies configurational entropy to determine stability limits of solitonic Q-balls and polytropic stars, providing a novel quantitative stability criterion.

Findings

Objects with high binding energy have low CE.

Objects near instability have maximal CE.

CE accurately predicts critical charge and Chandrasekhar limit.

Abstract

Spatially-bound objects across diverse length and energy scales are characterized by a binding energy. We propose that their spatial structure is mathematically encoded as information in their momentum modes and described by a measure known as configurational entropy (CE). Investigating solitonic Q-balls and stars with a polytropic equation of state $P = K{\rho}^{\gamma}$, we show that objects with large binding energy have low CE, whereas those at the brink of instability (zero binding energy) have near maximal CE. In particular, we use the CE to find the critical charge allowing for classically stable Q-balls and the Chandrasekhar limit for white dwarfs $({\gamma} = 4/3)$ with an accuracy of a few percent.