Tidally induced multipole moments of a charged material body

TL;DR

This paper defines and calculates the multipole moments and Love numbers of a charged, tidally deformed body in general relativity, revealing that charge significantly alters its tidal deformability.

Contribution

It provides a full Einstein-Maxwell theoretical framework for charged bodies, deriving their multipole moments and Love numbers without relying on post-Newtonian approximations.

Findings

Charged bodies have negative Love numbers.

Tidal deformability differs radically between charged and uncharged bodies.

The analysis applies to bodies with a uniform charge-to-mass ratio and polytropic equation of state.

Abstract

We define and calculate the mass multipole moments of a material body of mass $M$ and electric charge $Q$ tidally deformed by a particle of mass $m \ll M$ and charge $q \ll Q$ placed at a distance $r_0$ from the body. Given $Q/M$ and $r_0$, we choose $q/m$ so that the gravitational attraction between body and particle is balanced by the electrostatic repulsion; the system can then be maintained in a static state. The multipole moments are defined in a setting in which the body's self-gravity is allowed to be strong, but the mutual gravity between body and companion is required to be weak. In this setting, the body is described in full general relativity, in terms of a perturbed metric and electromagnetic potential characterized by tidal constants, and the mutual gravity is described within the post-Newtonian approximation to general relativity, in terms of objects with a multipole structure. Matching the different descriptions of the same field delivers a relation between the tidal constants and the multipole moments. In our implementation of this program, the calculation is performed in full Einstein-Maxwell theory (as a linearized perturbation of the unperturbed field), without appeal to a post-Newtonian approximation. After the fact we take $M/r_0$ to be small and carry out an expansion of the metric in powers of $M/r$ to obtain the multipole moments and associated Love numbers. The calculations are performed for a body made up of a perfect fluid with a uniform ratio of charge to mass densities, governed by a polytropic equation of state. We show that the Love numbers of a charged body in a situation of balanced gravitational and electrostatic forces are negative. The statement remains true even when $Q/M$ is very small, and we conclude that the tidal deformability of a charged body is radically different from that of an uncharged object, for which the Love numbers are positive.