Anti-de Sitter neutron stars in the theory of gravity with nonminimal derivative coupling

Abstract

We consider neutron star configurations in the scalar-tensor theory of gravity with the coupling between the kinetic term of a scalar field and the Einstein tensor (such the model is a subclass of Horndeski gravity). Neutron stars in this model were studied earlier for the special case with a vanishing "bare" cosmological constant, Λ 0 = 0, and a vanishing standard kinetic term, α = 0. This special case is of interest because it admits so-called stealth configuration, i.e. vacuum configuration with nontrivial scalar field and the Schwarzschild metric. However, generally one has Λ 0 = 0 and α = 0 and in this case a vacuum configuration is represented as an asymptotically antide Sitter (AdS) black hole solution with the nontrivial scalar field. We construct neutron star configurations in this general case and show that resulting diagrams describing the relation between mass and radius of the star essentially differ from those obtained in GR or the particular model with α = Λ 0 = 0. Instead, the mass-radius diagrams are similar to those obtained for so-called bare strange stars when a star radius decreases monotonically with decreasing mass. We show also that neutron stars in the theory of gravity with nonminimal derivative coupling are more compact comparing to those in GR or the particular model with α = Λ 0 = 0 and suggest a way to estimate possible values of the parameter of nonminimal coupling ℓ.