Regularization of instabilities in gravity theories

TL;DR

This paper explores how certain instabilities in gravity theories can be regularized to prevent unphysical growth, using mechanisms like ghost-induced spontaneous growth, with implications for observable phenomena and theoretical consistency.

Contribution

It identifies and demonstrates regularization mechanisms for instabilities in gravity theories, unifying various cases under a common framework and providing numerical solutions for scalarized neutron stars.

Findings

Regularization mechanisms can stabilize instabilities in gravity theories.

Spontaneous growth can be triggered by ghosts instead of tachyons.

Numerical solutions for scalarized neutron stars are presented.

Abstract

We investigate instabilities and their regularization in theories of gravitation. Instabilities can be beneficial since their growth often leads to prominent observable signatures which makes them especially relevant to relatively low signal-to-noise ratio measurements such as gravitational wave detections. An indefinitely growing instability usually renders a theory unphysical, hence a desirable instability should also come with underlying physical machinery that stops the growth at finite values, i.e. regularization mechanisms. The prototypical gravity theory that presents such an instability is the spontaneous scalarization phenomena of scalar-tensor theories, which feature a tachyonic instability. We identify the regularization mechanisms in this theory, and show that they can be utilized to regularize other instabilities as well. Namely, we present theories where spontaneous growth is triggered by a ghost rather than a tachyon, and numerically calculate stationary solutions of scalarized neutron stars in these theories. We speculate on the possibility of regularizing known divergent instabilities in certain gravity theories using our findings, and discuss alternative theories of gravitation where regularized instabilities may be present. Even though we study many specific examples, our main point is the recognition of regularized instabilities as a common theme and unifying mechanism in a vast array of gravity theories.