Einstein-Maxwell-axion theory: Dyon solution with regular electric field
Alexander B. Balakin, Alexei E. Zayats

TL;DR
This paper explores static, spherically symmetric solutions in Einstein-Maxwell-axion theory, revealing axionic dyons with regular electric fields, including those with vanishing central electric fields and Coulombian asymptotes.
Contribution
It introduces and analyzes new solutions describing axionic dyons with regular electric fields, highlighting the effects of axion-photon coupling on electric charge structure.
Findings
Solutions with regular electric fields at the center are found.
Electric charge can be effectively induced by axion-photon interaction.
Constraints on electric and scalar charges are discussed.
Abstract
In the framework of Einstein-Maxwell-axion theory we consider static spherically symmetric solutions, which describe a magnetic monopole in the axionic environment. These solutions are interpreted as the solutions for an axionic dyon, the electric charge of which is composite, i.e., in addition to the standard central electric charge, it includes an effective electric charge induced by the axion-photon coupling. We focus on the analysis of that solutions, which are characterized by the electric field regular at the center. Special attention is paid to the solutions with the electric field, which is vanishing at the center, has the Coulombian asymptote and thus display an extremum at some distant sphere. Constraints on the electric and effective scalar charges of such an object are discussed.
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Einstein-Maxwell-axion theory: Dyon solution with regular electric field
Alexander B. Balakin
Department of General Relativity and Gravitation, Institute of Physics, Kazan Federal University, Kremlevskaya str. 18, Kazan 420008, Russia
Alexei E. Zayats
Department of General Relativity and Gravitation, Institute of Physics, Kazan Federal University, Kremlevskaya street 18, Kazan 420008, Russia
Abstract
In the framework of Einstein-Maxwell-axion theory we consider static spherically symmetric solutions, which describe a magnetic monopole in the axionic environment. These solutions are interpreted as the solutions for an axionic dyon, the electric charge of which is composite, i.e., in addition to the standard central electric charge, it includes an effective electric charge induced by the axion-photon coupling. We focus on the analysis of that solutions, which are characterized by the electric field regular at the center. Special attention is paid to the solutions with the electric field, which is vanishing at the center, has the Coulombian asymptote and thus display an extremum at some distant sphere. Constraints on the electric and effective scalar charges of such an object are discussed.
pacs:
04.20.-q, 04.40.-b
I Introduction
In 1987 Wilczek has formulated the idea that for a distant observer the magnetic monopole in an axionic environment looks like a dyon with magnetic and effective electric charge Wilczek2 . This idea was based on the prediction of the axion electrodynamics that the interaction between the radial magnetic field, attributed to the monopole, and the surrounding pseudoscalar (axion) field produces the radial electric field without real electric charge at the center. That is why one can say, that Wilczek presented in 1987 the first example of the so-called axionic dyon. The axion electrodynamics, on which this result was based, has been established and developed in the decade 1977-1987, being inspired by the theoretical discovery of Peccei and Quinn of the CP-invariance conservation PQ , and by discussions about a new light pseudo-Goldstone boson introduced by Weinberg Weinberg and Wilczek Wilczek . The model of coupling of the pseudoscalar and electromagnetic fields was formulated in covariant form by Ni in Ni77 ; the axion electrodynamics written in the 3-dimensional form was used by many authors (see, e.g., the work of Sikivie Sikivie83 ). Since the axions are considered to be candidates to the dark matter particles ADM1 ; ADM2 ; ADM3 ; ADM4 ; ADM5 ; ADM6 ; ADM7 ; ADM8 ; ADM9 , the physics of axions had become one of the key elements of numerous applications to cosmology and astrophysics. These applications involve into consideration various models of interaction of gravitational, electromagnetic, scalar and pseudoscalar fields, which are called nowadays the Einstein-Maxwell-axion, and Einstein-Maxwell-axion-dilaton models (see, e.g., EMAD1 ; EMAD2 ; EMAD3 ). Also, these applications attract the attention to the models, which belong to the class of theories indicated by term Extended Axion Electrodynamics ExtendedAE1 ; ExtendedAE2 ; ExtendedAE3 ; ExtendedAE4 ; ExtendedAE5 ; ExtendedAE6 ; ExtendedAE7 ; ExtendedAE8 .
In 1991 Lee and Weinberg LW1991 studied spherically symmetric solutions for static black holes with massless axionlike scalar field; in fact, it was a realization of the Wilczek idea in the framework of Einstein-Maxwell-axion theory. Lee and Weinberg have obtained self-consistent master equations for the axion field and metric coefficients, analyzed the asymptotic properties of the solutions, and studied analytic and numeric solutions for the cases of large and small values of the constant of the axion-photon coupling. If we omit the initial electric charge at the center of the object described in LW1991 , we find the solution for the axionic dyon, which was obtained in the framework of the Einstein-Maxwell-axion model, and was predicted in Wilczek2 using the simple Maxwell-axion model. In this sense, one can say, that in Wilczek2 ; LW1991 the authors presented the first (static) example of the so-called Longitudinal Magneto-Electric Cluster, in which the magnetic and axionically induced electric fields are parallel to one another. Later the solutions describing the Longitudinal Clusters were found in the systems with the pp-wave symmetry pp1 , and in the context of search for fingerprints of relic axions in the terrestrial magnetosphere BG .
Now we are interested to find a regular solution for the axionic dyon. What does this means? In 1968 Bardeen Bardeen attracted the attention to the solutions of the field equations regular in the center. The first idea was to modify the equations for the electric field so that it will be finite at ; for instance, it might be the function with and the Coulombian asymptote . In the framework of Einstein-Maxwell theory the regularity in the center assumes that not only the electric field is finite, but the metric coefficients and all curvature invariants are finite as well. The story of search for regular solutions is worthy to be a subject of special review; we would like to mention only three details in this context. First, the nonminimal coupling of electromagnetic and gauge fields can provide the gravitational field to be regular (see, e.g., Reg1 ; Reg2 ; Reg3 ). Second, the nonminimal coupling can provide the electric field to be finite in the center (see, e.g., Reg4 ; Reg5 ; Reg6 ). Third, for solutions with a magnetic monopole field the situation is not perfect; for the mentioned solutions the first invariant of the electromagnetic (or gauge) field, , is not regular in the center, since the magnetic field, , in contrast to the electric one, cannot be finite there. As for the second (pseudo)invariant , it is possible to be finite in the center, when the electric field is not only finite, but tends to zero not slowly than . On the other hand, if the electric field strength is finite at the origin, but does not vanish, vector field has a hedgehog-like singularity. Therefore if we expect to find a solution, which is characterized by the electric field regular in the center in the strict sense of the word, we should require the condition to be satisfied.
Thus, searching for the regular axionic dyons, we are faced with the problem to find an exact solution of the field equations, for which the electric component vanishes both at and . Below we intend to show that it is possible for magnetic monopole surrounded by the pseudoscalar (axion) field, when the guiding parameters of the model are specifically coupled.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section II, we remind basic details of the Einstein-Maxwell-axion theory, and recover well-known solutions with vanishing constant of the axion-photon coupling (), using the harmonic spacetime coordinates. In Section III, we analyze the solutions with nonvanishing ; in Subsection III.1 we discuss an example of exact solution for the axionic dyon singular at the center; in Subsection III.2 we study (analytically) the regular solutions of the axion electrostatics in the background of magnetic monopole; the results of the numerical study are presented in Subsection III.3. Section IV contains conclusions.
II Einstein-Maxwell-axion model
II.1 Basic formalism
The action functional of the Einstein-Maxwell-axion model takes the form
[TABLE]
Here is the Ricci scalar; is the determinant of the metric tensor ; is the Einstein constant, is the Maxwell tensor, denotes its dual tensor, stands for the pseudoscalar (axion) field; is the constant of the axion-photon coupling; and is the axion mass.
The variation of the action (1) with respect to potentials of the electromagnetic field , to the axion field , to the spacetime metric gives, respectively, the equations of axion electrodynamics
[TABLE]
the equation for the axion field
[TABLE]
and the equations for the gravitational field
[TABLE]
Here and are the energy-momentum tensors for the electromagnetic and axion fields, respectively, which are defined as follows
[TABLE]
The dual Maxwell tensor satisfies the equation , which is free of information about the axion field.
II.2 Static spherically symmetric spacetime
Let us consider a static spherically symmetric spacetime with the metric
[TABLE]
We use the harmonic coordinate system Bron73 , in which the variable plays the role of a radial coordinate; the spatial infinity corresponds to . We assume that the axion field depends on the radial coordinate only, i.e., . This system is more convenient to analyze scalar field models, but when we will need to revive the usual spherical coordinate notation, we put
[TABLE]
At the spatial infinity, i.e, at , asymptotic behavior of the spacetime metric is supposed to be Minkowskian. It means that
[TABLE]
In this paper, we focus on the study of configurations with a magnetic monopole located at the center; the Maxwell tensor components are chosen to be equal to
[TABLE]
where the constant relates to the magnetic charge, is a function to be found. To characterize the electric field it is convenient to introduce also the scalar quantity defined as follows
[TABLE]
In fact, the scalar is the tetrad component of the Maxwell tensor . In these terms the equations of axion electrodynamics (2) reduce to one equation
[TABLE]
yielding the solution
[TABLE]
The constant of integration is the value of the axion field at the infinity, i.e., ; similarly, we define .
The axion field equation (3) takes now the form
[TABLE]
Using (13) we can rewrite this equation as follows:
[TABLE]
There are four nontrivial equations of the gravitational field. For the metric (7) four nonvanishing components of the Einstein tensor are
[TABLE]
The corresponding four nonvanishing components of the energy-momentum tensor take the form (see (5) and (6))
[TABLE]
If we assume (as in LW1991 ) that the axion field is massless, , three independent equations for gravity field can be rewritten as
[TABLE]
Clearly, the first equation is decoupled from other ones, and can be immediately resolved. Indeed, the first integral of (22) is
[TABLE]
and the the solution satisfying the condition (9) takes the form
[TABLE]
Also, one can check directly, that with (29) Eq. (23) is a differential consequence of (24) with (13). Thus the key subsystem of master equations consists of the following pair of equations
[TABLE]
When the quantities and are found, the axion field and the electric field can be reconstructed as
[TABLE]
In other words, we have to find two functions and , which satisfy the key system of equations (30). Since we use nonstandard coordinate instead of radial variable , we would like to comment how the known solutions can be displayed in these terms.
II.3 Known solutions in the -representation with vanishing constant of axion-photon coupling
In order to illustrate a behavior of the metric functions , and the function , let us give some examples of well-known spacetimes, for which the axion-photon coupling is supposed to be absent, .
II.3.1 Schwarzschild solution
In case when and , the first equation from Eq. (30) reduces to the following form
[TABLE]
and the solution to it with the condition (9) can be found immediately
[TABLE]
where . The formula (29) gives
[TABLE]
Thus, we obtain the Schwarzschild metric in the harmonic coordinates
[TABLE]
After transformation of the radial coordinate (see (8))
[TABLE]
this metric returns to its standard form
[TABLE]
The constant plays here the role of the mass. Mention should be made, that the -coordinate system covers the Schwarzschild spacetime from the spatial infinity () till the horizon () only. When the metric component tends to zero, i.e., .
II.3.2 Reissner-Nordström solution
Let the axion field and the function be constant, , and . Then the second equation from Eq. (30) is an identity, and the first one is simplified as
[TABLE]
The solution to this equation, which satisfies the condition , is
[TABLE]
where the value can be obtained from the condition
[TABLE]
In order to clarify the sense of the constant for the Reissner-Nordström solution, we consider the case . At the origin the metric function behaves as
[TABLE]
and keeping in mind the Schwarzschild solution we can identify the factor in front of with the mass , i.e.,
[TABLE]
Thus, the Reissner-Nordström solution in the harmonic coordinate system takes the form
[TABLE]
We have to compare this solution with the well-known one
[TABLE]
The solutions (41) can be identified with (42) keeping in mind the number of horizons.
(i) One horizon.
When , i.e., when , there is one horizon at and .
(ii) Naked singularity.
When , one obtains that
[TABLE]
[TABLE]
[TABLE]
If then , therefore this point corresponds to the central naked singularity.
(iii) Double horizon. When , i.e., when , we obtain
[TABLE]
After transformation of the radial coordinate
[TABLE]
one can derive the standard form of the metric
[TABLE]
II.3.3 Penney and Fisher solutions
When the axion-photon coupling constant is equal to zero and , the Eq. (14) reduces to , thus the axion field is linear in the variable
[TABLE]
The integration constant can be indicated as an scalar (axion) “charge”. The constant is now a combination of the charges , , and
[TABLE]
The equations (24) give now
[TABLE]
and the solution to this equation takes the form
[TABLE]
Here the modified constant is of the form
[TABLE]
For the metric functions and given by (29)) the linear element (7) covers the Penney solution Penney
[TABLE]
Clearly, when the constants and coincide, and the Penney solution reduces to the Reissner-Nordström one.
When , i.e.,
[TABLE]
we recover the “extremal” Penney solution
[TABLE]
In the particular case, if both electric and magnetic charges, and , vanish, the metric (53) turns into the Fisher metric Fisher
[TABLE]
where the constant
[TABLE]
can be positive, vanishing or negative depending on the relation between the mass and the scalar (axion) charge .
III Solutions with nonvanishing constant of the axion-photon coupling,
Let us consider the general case, for which the axion-photon coupling constant does not vanish. We deal now with the key system of equations
[TABLE]
with the the boundary conditions
[TABLE]
The first condition for is the requirement that the spacetime is asymptotically Minkowskian; the second one introduces the asymptotic Schwarzschild mass . The first condition for means that is the asymptotic electric charge. As for the last condition, it appears from the relationship and the definition for the axion charge . As usual, we denote the asymptotic value of the pseudoscalar (axion) field as . and for this version of the key system of equations the constant is not arbitrary, it satisfies the condition (48) .
Clearly, the key system of equations (58) does not depend on explicitly, we see only as the argument of and . This means that we can search for particular solutions of the form , and replace the derivative by in the key system yielding the following equation:
[TABLE]
We will use this consequence in the next subsection to obtain particular exact solution to the key system.
III.1 Exact solution with the singularity at the center
In general case the key system of equations admits the numerical study only, that is why we would like to start our discussion with a particular but explicit example of a solution, when the constant is vanishing, . Then the first equation (58) admits the solution quadratic in :
[TABLE]
when five parameters , , , , satisfy the following three relationships
[TABLE]
Since , the second metric coefficient is of the form . In order to find the function we focus on the second equation (58). With the parameters given by (62) and boundary conditions (59) the first integral of that equation is
[TABLE]
so that its implicit solution
[TABLE]
is expressed in terms of the Gauss error function , defined as
[TABLE]
When , the first Gauss error function in (64) takes finite value; this means that there exists a finite value , for which . For instance, when is positive, , and can be found as follows:
[TABLE]
The radial function (8) also can be presented in terms of Gauss error functions:
[TABLE]
According to this formula, , thus, we obtain that and . In other words, we deal with central singularity at . On the other hand, , when , where
[TABLE]
which is valid for arbitrary signs of and . Similarly, we obtain
[TABLE]
Thus, the electric field takes zero value, when and . Since , the function reaches extremum at the finite value of the variable (the type of extremum, minimum or maximum, is predetermined by the sign of the electric charge ). Typical plots of and are presented in Fig. 1.
III.2 Axion electrostatics in the background field of the magnetic monopole
III.2.1 Preamble: The regular solution to the equation of axion electrostatics in the flat spacetime
In order to simplify further interpretation of solutions, let us assume, first, that the background spacetime is flat, i.e., and . Then the last equation in (58) reduces to the form
[TABLE]
and we can obtain the solution discovered by Campbell, Kaloper, and Olive Campbell , which is regular at the center and satisfies the condition
[TABLE]
Another boundary condition gives the constraint on the axion charge
[TABLE]
for which this regular solution exists.
III.2.2 Exact solution to the equation of axion electrostatics
We assume now that the background gravitational field is formed by the magnetic monopole without horizons and with the naked singularity at the center. In fact, the background metric relates to the Reissner-Nordström solution with a magnetic charge. This means that , and
[TABLE]
[TABLE]
[TABLE]
where is the Reissner-Nordström radius. When , we obtain that and .
In this spacetime background the function , which determines the electric field induced by the axion-photon coupling, satisfies the equation
[TABLE]
The replacement transforms this equation into the Legendre equation
[TABLE]
where the parameter is introduced as follows:
[TABLE]
The variable is complex; the quantity takes the value at , and becomes infinite , when . We search for the solution , which is regular for the interval , and we require especially, that the solution is regular at . As usual, , the solution of the Legendre equation (77), is the linear combination of and , the Legendre functions of the first and second kinds, respectively (see, e.g., Erd for details). Keeping in mind the analytic properties of the Legendre functions, we can write the regular solution for satisfying the condition in the following form:
[TABLE]
Here is the Heaviside function; as was shown in ExtendedAE5 such a structure guarantees the regularity of the solution on the real axis of the complex plane . Using (79) and (75) we can present the electric field as a function of as follows:
[TABLE]
III.2.3 Integral representation of the solution
For the analysis of regularity of the electric field one can use also the convenient integral representations of the Legendre functions (see Erd )
[TABLE]
which yields, in particular,
[TABLE]
Using these representations, one can show that
[TABLE]
where the function is defined as follows
[TABLE]
and is the standard Reissner-Nordström metric coefficient
[TABLE]
The function satisfies the following relations:
[TABLE]
Using the formula (88), one can obtain that
[TABLE]
The electric field is regular at the center , when . The value is finite, when , and , when . The second invariant of the electromagnetic field is regular at the center, when . Indeed,
[TABLE]
thus, at the invariant . In Fig. 2 we present typical plots of the function for three values of the parameter .
III.2.4 Behavior of the axion field
When the function is found, the axion field can be easily reconstructed. In particular, one can see that the axion field is regular at the center, when the function takes finite value at . We focus now on the following detail: when , the quantity tends to , so, in fact, we have to analyze the value of the quantity . This ratio can be calculated as
[TABLE]
Integral representation (81) of this quantity gives
[TABLE]
For two limiting cases, and , this expression takes the form
[TABLE]
[TABLE]
Using the formula (89), one can demonstrate the following detail: if , i.e., if the axion-photon coupling constant is much greater than , the ratio tends to a constant for any values of :
[TABLE]
Thus, in this limit, , we obtain the result coinciding with the flat spacetime case (see (72)).
III.2.5 Limiting case
Let us consider the extremal Reissner-Nordström case with . For this limit, we have
[TABLE]
The metric function takes the form
[TABLE]
while the electric field function according the formula (83) can be written as follows
[TABLE]
or, excluding the variable ,
[TABLE]
In contrast to the case , the function vanishes at the double horizon and .
III.3 Qualitative and numerical studies of the regular solutions
When the spacetime background is not fixed, i.e., the model is self-consistent, we have to solve the general system of the key equations (58) and (60). In contrast to the explicit example demonstrated in Subsection III.1, regular solutions to this system can be presented in a numerical form only.
In this subsection we will study solutions with the electric field, regular at the center, when the function vanishes at . The metric function has to tend to , because the naked singularity associated with the magnetic monopole cannot be removed. Using Eq. (60), we obtain that behaves as
[TABLE]
where the parameter has to satisfy the condition
[TABLE]
Obviously, this relation does not differ from the corresponding expression (78) for the background solution. The formula (100) relates to the following asymptotic behavior of the functions and :
[TABLE]
where the value corresponds to the value at the center. For instance, for the background solution considered above . When does not vanish at , the standard radial coordinate behaves as follows:
[TABLE]
and we have
[TABLE]
The first formula coincides qualitatively with the corresponding expression for the background solution (see (90), and the electric field vanishes at the center when as well.
When the boundary conditions (59) give
[TABLE]
If we fix the electric and magnetic charges, and , the coupling constant , and the mass , desired solution to Eq. (60) with conditions (100) and (103) exists only for a specific value of the axion charge , and the inequality has to be valid. This latter constraint arises from the second equation of (58), because
[TABLE]
To illustrate dependence between , , , and (or ), we present Figs. 3 and 4. Each figure consists of three panels, which correspond to specific values of the coupling parameter , namely, for , 2, and 3, respectively.
On the other hand, if Eq. (60) admits a solution, which at behaves as follows (cf. (99))
[TABLE]
As it was mentioned above, such a solution corresponds to the metric, which possesses a double horizon. Curves describing in Figs. 3 and 4 the relationship between the charges, , , and , and the mass for this limiting configuration are drawn using gray color.
Fig. 3 depicts dependence between the ratio and the mass for fixed values of the electric charge and the coupling parameter . The first (left) curve corresponds to the limiting case described in Subsection III.2. Other curves correspond to , where .
Fig. 4 illustrates dependence between the ratio and the mass for fixed values of the axion scalar charge and the coupling parameter . The range on the horizontal axis corresponds again to the limiting case described in Subsection III.2. Color curves correspond to , where . The gray line defines the mass-charge relation for the spacetime metric with double (extremal) horizon. If the gravitational interaction is much weaker than the axion-photon coupling, i.e. when , or, equivalently, , the color curves become horizontal, (see (72)). The solution of Campbell, Kaloper, and Olive (71) can be considered as a non-gravitational limit.
IV Conclusions
In the present paper we realize Wilczek’s idea about a magnetic monopole surrounded by an axion-induced radial electric field in the framework of the Einstein-Maxwell model with the massless axion field. Since this electric field is created by interaction between the magnetic field of the monopole and the axion field and is not related to any real electric charge, the electric field has to be regular in the center in the strict sense, i.e., . In this sense, our solution is a generalization of the result of Campbell, Kaloper, and Olive Campbell , taking into account the gravitational field of the monopole.
In Subsection III.2 we present the four-parameter family of solutions (see Eqs. (80) and (83)) in the framework of the axion electrodynamics on the background of the magnetic monopole gravitational field with the metric of the Reissner-Nordström type. The fifth parameter, the axion field charge , is determined by other parameters, namely, the electric and magnetic charges and , the mass , and the coupling parameter (see Eq. (92)). Besides this relation, the parameters are bounded by two inequalities, which correspond to requirements of absence of horizons () and regularity at the origin (). In addition, when the invariant scalar appears to be regular in the center too.
In Subsection III.3, using numerical methods, we solve the total system of equations attributed to the Einstein-Maxwell-axion model, in which the gravitational field is self-consistent, not the background one. We demonstrate that the behavior of the solutions to the self-consistent system qualitatively coincides with the background solution, and this background solution can be extracted from the general solution as an asymptotic case with .
Acknowledgements.
The work was supported by Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 16-12-10401), and, partially, by the Program of Competitive Growth of Kazan Federal University.
The reference list from the paper itself. Each links out to its DOI / PubMed record.
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