Astrophysical black holes in screened modified gravity

Davis, Anne-Christine; Gregory, Ruth; Jha, Rahul; Muir, Jessica

Abstract

Chameleon, environmentally dependent dilaton, and symmetron gravity are three models of modified gravity in which the effects of the additional scalar degree of freedom are screened in dense environments. They have been extensively studied in laboratory, cosmological, and astrophysical contexts. In this paper, we present a preliminary investigation into whether additional constraints can be provided by studying these scalar fields around black holes. By looking at the properties of a static, spherically symmetric black hole, we find that the presence of a non-uniform matter distribution induces a non-constant scalar profile in chameleon and dilaton, but not necessarily symmetron gravity. An order of magnitude estimate shows that the effects of these profiles on in-falling test particles will be sub-leading compared to gravitational waves and hence observationally challenging to detect.

Citation

Davis, A., Gregory, R., Jha, R., & Muir, J. (2014). Astrophysical black holes in screened modified gravity. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, 2014(08), Article 033. https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2014/08/033

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Aug 14, 2014
• Deposit Date: Sep 11, 2014
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 17, 2014
• Journal: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 2014
• Issue: 08
• Article Number: 033
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2014/08/033
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1421004