Modified Gravity and the Flux-weighted Gravity-Luminosity Relationship of Blue Supergiant Stars

TL;DR

This study explores how modified gravity theories affect blue supergiant stars and their use as distance indicators, revealing systematic shifts in luminosity and flux-weighted gravity that impact extragalactic distance measurements.

Contribution

It introduces stellar evolution models incorporating modified gravity effects and constrains these theories using observational data from multiple galaxies.

Findings

Modified gravity causes a 0.05 to 0.15 magnitude increase in distance modulus.

Systematic differences between FGLR and TRGB distances can rule out certain modified gravity parameters.

Constraints on shielding and fifth force parameters are established with 90% confidence.

Abstract

We calculate models of stellar evolution for very massive stars and include the effects of modified gravity to investigate the influence on the physical properties of blue supergiant stars and their use as extragalactic distance indicators. With shielding and fifth force parameters in a similar range as in previous studies of Cepheid and tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) stars we find clear effects on stellar luminosity and flux-weighted gravity. The relationship between flux weighted gravity, g_F = g/Teff^4, and bolometric magnitude M_bol (FGLR), which has been used successfully for accurate distance determinations, is systematically affected. While the stellar evolution FGLRs show a systematic offset from the observed relation, we can use the differential shifts between models with Newtonian and modified gravity to estimate the influence on FGLR distance determinations. Modified gravity leads to a distance increase of 0.05 to 0.15 magnitudes in distance modulus. These change are comparable to the ones found for Cepheid stars. We compare observed FGLR and TRGB distances of nine galaxies to constrain the free parameters of modified gravity. Not accounting for systematic differences between TRGB and FGLR distances shielding parameters of 5*10^-7 and 10^-6 and fifth force parameters of 1/3 and 1 can be ruled out with about 90% confidence. Allowing for potential systematic offsets between TRGB and FGLR distances no determination is possible for a shielding parameter of 10^-6. For 5*10$^-7 a fifth force parameter of 1 can be ruled out to 92% but 1/3 is unlikely only to 60%.