Axisymmetric equilibrium models for magnetised neutron stars in scalar-tensor theories

Abstract

Among the possible extensions of general relativity that have been put forward to address some long-standing issues in our understanding of the Universe, scalar-tensor theories have received a lot of attention for their simplicity. Interestingly, some of these predict a potentially observable non-linear phenomenon, known as spontaneous scalarisation, in the presence of highly compact matter distributions, as in the case of neutron stars. Neutron stars are ideal laboratories for investigating the properties of matter under extreme conditions and, in particular, they are known to harbour the strongest magnetic fields in the Universe. Here, for the first time, we present a detailed study of magnetised neutron stars in scalar-tensor theories. First, we showed that the formalism developed for the study of magnetised neutron stars in general relativity, based on the “extended conformally flat condition”, can easily be extended in the presence of a non-minimally coupled scalar field, retaining many of its numerical advantages. We then carried out a study of the parameter space considering the two extreme geometries of purely toroidal and purely poloidal magnetic fields, varying both the strength of the magnetic field and the intensity of scalarisation. We compared our results with magnetised general-relativistic solutions and un-magnetised scalarised solutions, showing how the mutual interplay between magnetic and scalar fields affect the magnetic and the scalarisation properties of neutron stars. In particular, we focus our discussion on magnetic deformability, maximum mass, and range of scalarisation.