Neutron Stars in Scalar-Tensor Theories: Analytic Scalar Charges and Universal Relations

TL;DR

This paper derives accurate analytic expressions for scalar charges of neutron stars in scalar-tensor theories, revealing universal relations and providing tools for testing gravity in strong-field regimes.

Contribution

It introduces an analytical method to compute scalar charges of neutron stars in scalar-tensor theories, complementing numerical approaches and highlighting universal relations.

Findings

Analytic scalar charges match numerical results well.

Discovered quasi-universal relation between scalar charge and binding energy.

Supported universality with different stellar density profiles.

Abstract

Neutron stars are ideal astrophysical sources to probe general relativity due to their large compactnesses and strong gravitational fields. For example, binary pulsar and gravitational wave observations have placed stringent bounds on certain scalar-tensor theories in which a massless scalar field is coupled to the metric through matter. A remarkable phenomenon of neutron stars in such scalar-tensor theories is spontaneous scalarization, where a normalized scalar charge remains order unity even if the matter-scalar coupling vanishes asymptotically far from the neutron star. While most works on scalarization of neutron stars focus on numerical analysis, this paper aims to derive accurate scalar charges analytically. To achieve this, we consider a simple energy density profile of the Tolman VII form and work in a weak-field expansion. We solve the modified Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equations order by order and apply Pad\'e resummation to account for higher-order effects. We find that our analytic scalar charges in terms of the stellar compactness beautifully model those computed numerically. We also find a quasi-universal relation between the scalar charge and stellar binding energy that is insensitive to the underlying equations of state. Comparison of analytic scalar charges for Tolman VII and constant density stars mathematically support this quasi-universal relation. The analytic results found here provide physically motivated, ready-to-use accurate expressions for scalar charges.