An Ultra-compact Object from Semi-classical Gravity

TL;DR

This paper investigates whether a semi-classical gravity modification can produce distinct ultra-compact objects from those predicted by general relativity, finding that the effects are negligible for physically relevant parameter ranges.

Contribution

It analyzes the negative branch of a semi-classical gravity-modified TOV equation and shows it does not significantly alter ultra-compact object properties compared to GR.

Findings

Mass-radius curves are indistinguishable from GR results.

The parameter $l_p$ must be much larger than Planck length.

No significant gravitational echo effects are produced.

Abstract

In a recent report, Carballo-Rubio [1] utilizes the semi-classical theory of gravity to obtain a generalized Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff (TOV) equation. This model has a new coupling constant $l_p$ implying two different modified TOV equation forms characterized by the sign of $p'$. The negative branch reduces to the ordinary GR-TOV in the limit of $l_p\to0$, while the positive one does not. In the positive branch, Carballo-Rubio was able to find the exact solutions using the constant-$\lambda$ trick. In this work, we investigate whether this theory's negative branch can also provide a different feature of the ultra-compact object compared to those obtained from the GR-TOV equation. We study ultra-compact objects with an isotropically ideal fluid matter where we use a simple but physically motivated equation of state $\rho=p/w+\rho_0$ with $w$=1 and $w$=1/3. In general, we obtain that the range of $l_p$ is very restricted and must not be equal to $r_c$. Here $r_c$ is the starting point of integration located at the center of the star. While $l_p$ should be set to be much larger than Planck length $L_\text{Pl}$. Consequently, the mass-radius curves for the various value of $l_p$ for both $w$ cases are still indistinguishable from the standard GR-TOV results. Hence from the negative branch of $p'(r)$, the additional free parameter $l_p$ does not provide a significant effect compared to the standard GR-TOV equation results, even though $l_p$ is not in the limit of $l_p\to0$ anymore. Therefore, similar to the conclusion in Ref. [3] with GR theory that the ultra-compact objects from negative branch of semi-classical gravity with a linear equation of state are unable to generate demanding gravitational echoes.