Proca Field Research Articles

The Proca Field in Curved Spacetimes and its Zero Mass Limit

We investigate the classical and quantum Proca field (a massive vector potential) of mass $m>0$ in arbitrary globally hyperbolic spacetimes and in the presence of external sources. We motivate a notion of continuity in the mass for families of observables $\left\{O_m\right\}_{m>0}$ and we investigate the massless limit $m\to0$. Our limiting procedure is local and covariant and it does not require a choice of reference state. We find that the limit exists only on a subset of observables, which automatically implements a gauge equivalence on the massless vector potential. For topologically non-trivial spacetimes, one may consider several inequivalent choices of gauge equivalence and our procedure selects the one which is expected from considerations involving the Aharonov-Bohm effect and Gauss' law. We note that the limiting theory does not automatically reproduce Maxwell's equation, but it can be imposed consistently when the external current is conserved. To recover the correct Maxwell dynamics from the limiting procedure would require an additional control on limits of states. We illustrate this only in the classical case, where the dynamics is recovered when the Lorenz constraint remains well behaved in the limit.

Dynamical formation of Proca stars and quasistationary solitonic objects

We perform fully non-linear numerical simulations within the spherically symmetric Einstein-(complex)Proca system. Starting with Proca field distributions that obey the Hamiltonian, momentum and Gaussian constraints, we show that the self-gravity of the system induces the formation of compact objects, which, for appropriate initial conditions, asymptotically approach stationary soliton-like solutions known as Proca stars. The excess energy of the system is dissipated by the mechanism of \textit{gravitational cooling} in analogy to what occurs in the dynamical formation of scalar boson stars. We investigate the dependence of this process on the phase difference between the real and imaginary parts of the Proca field, as well as on their relative amplitudes. Within the timescales probed by our numerical simulations the process is qualitatively insensitive to either choice: the phase difference and the amplitude ratio are conserved during the evolution. Thus, whereas a truly stationary object is expected to be approached only in the particular case of equal amplitudes and opposite phases, quasi-stationary compact solitonic objects are, nevertheless, formed in the general case.

Gravitational properties of the Proca field

We study various properties of a Proca field coupled to gravity through minimal and quadrupole interactions, described by a two-parameter family of Lagrangians. Stückelberg decomposition of the effective theory spells out its model-dependent ultraviolet cutoff, parametrically larger than the Proca mass. We present pp-wave solutions that the model admits, consider linear fluctuations on such backgrounds, and thereby constrain the parameter space of the theory by requiring null-energy condition and the absence of negative time delays in high-energy scattering. We briefly discuss the positivity constraints—derived from unitarity and analyticity of scattering amplitudes—that become ineffective in this regard.

Renormalization of generalized vector field models in curved spacetime

We calculate the one-loop divergences for different vector field models in curved spacetime. We introduce a classification scheme based on their degeneracy structure, which encompasses the well-known models of the non-degenerate vector field, the Abelian gauge field and the Proca field. The renormalization of the generalized Proca model, which has important applications in cosmology, is more complicated. By extending standard heat-kernel techniques, we derive a closed form expression for the one-loop divergences of the generalized Proca model.

Massive Vector Fields in Rotating Black-Hole Spacetimes: Separability and Quasinormal Modes.

We demonstrate the separability of the massive vector (Proca) field equation in general Kerr-NUT-AdS black-hole spacetimes in any number of dimensions, filling a long-standing gap in the literature. The obtained separated equations are studied in more detail for the four-dimensional Kerr geometry and the corresponding quasinormal modes are calculated. Two of the three independent polarizations of the Proca field are shown to emerge from the separation ansatz and the results are found in an excellent agreement with those of the recent numerical study where the full coupled partial differential equations were tackled without using the separability property.

Constraining the mass of dark photons and axion-like particles through black-hole superradiance

Ultralight bosons and axion-like particles appear naturally in different scenarios and could solve some long-standing puzzles. Their detection is challenging, and all direct methods hinge on unknown couplings to the Standard Model of particle physics. However, the universal coupling to gravity provides model-independent signatures for these fields. We explore here the superradiant instability of spinning black holes triggered in the presence of such fields. The instability taps angular momentum from and limits the maximum spin of astrophysical black holes. We compute, for the first time, the spectrum of the most unstable modes of a massive vector (Proca) field for generic black-hole spin and Proca mass. The observed stability of the inner disk of stellar-mass black holes can be used to derive direct constraints on the mass of dark photons in the mass range 10−13 eV≲ mV ≲ 3× 10−12 eV. By including also higher azimuthal modes, similar constraints apply to axion-like particles in the mass range 6×10−13 eV≲ mALP ≲ 10−11 eV. Likewise, mass and spin distributions of supermassive BHs—as measured through continuum fitting, Kα iron line, or with the future space-based gravitational-wave detector LISA – imply indirect bounds in the mass range approximately 10−19 eV≲ mV, mALP ≲ 10−13 eV, for both axion-like particles and dark photons. Overall, superradiance allows to explore a region of approximately 8 orders of magnitude in the mass of ultralight bosons.

Superradiant Instability and Backreaction of Massive Vector Fields around Kerr Black Holes.

We study the growth and saturation of the superradiant instability of a complex, massive vector (Proca) field as it extracts energy and angular momentum from a spinning black hole, using numerical solutions of the full Einstein-Proca equations. We concentrate on a rapidly spinning black hole (a=0.99) and the dominant m=1 azimuthal mode of the Proca field, with real and imaginary components of the field chosen to yield an axisymmetric stress-energy tensor and, hence, spacetime. We find that in excess of 9% of the black hole's mass can be transferred into the field. In all cases studied, the superradiant instability smoothly saturates when the black hole's horizon frequency decreases to match the frequency of the Proca cloud that spontaneously forms around the black hole.

Superradiant instability of massive vector fields around spinning black holes in the relativistic regime

We study the superradiant instability of massive vector fields, i.e. Proca fields, around spinning black holes in the test field limit. This is motivated by the possibility that observations of astrophysical black holes can probe the existence of ultralight bosons subject to this mechanism. By making use of time-domain simulations, we characterize the growth rate, frequency, spatial distribution, and other properties of the unstable modes, including in the regime where the black hole is rapidly spinning and the Compton wavelength of the Proca field is comparable to the black hole radius. We find that relativistic effects in this regime increase the range of Proca masses that are unstable, as well as the maximum instability rate. We also study the gravitational waves that can be sourced by such an instability, finding that they can be significantly stronger than in the massive scalar field case.

Numerical evolutions of spherical Proca stars

Vector boson stars, or $\textit{Proca stars}$, have been recently obtained as fully non-linear numerical solutions of the Einstein-(complex)-Proca system. These are self-gravitating, everywhere non-singular, horizonless Bose-Einstein condensates of a massive vector field, which resemble in many ways, but not all, their scalar cousins, the well-known (scalar) $\textit{boson stars}$. In this paper we report fully-non linear numerical evolutions of Proca stars, focusing on the spherically symmetric case, with the goal of assessing their stability and the end-point of the evolution of the unstable stars. Previous results from linear perturbation theory indicate the separation between stable and unstable configurations occurs at the solution with maximal ADM mass. Our simulations confirm this result. Evolving numerically unstable solutions, we find, depending on the sign of the binding energy of the solution and on the perturbation, three different outcomes: $(i)$ migration to the stable branch, $(ii)$ total dispersion of the scalar field, or $(iii)$ collapse to a Schwarzschild black hole. In the latter case, a long lived Proca field remnant -- a $\textit{Proca wig}$ -- composed by quasi-bound states, may be seen outside the horizon after its formation, with a life-time that scales inversely with the Proca mass. We comment on the similarities/differences with the scalar case as well as with neutron stars.

Generalized multi-Proca fields

We extend previous results on healthy derivative self-interactions for a Proca field to the case of a set of massive vector fields. We obtain non-gauge invariant derivative self-interactions for the vector fields that maintain the appropriate number of propagating degrees of freedom. In view of the potential cosmological applications, we restrict to interactions with an internal rotational symmetry. We provide a systematical construction order by order in derivatives of the fields and making use of the antisymmetric Levi-Civita tensor. We then compare with the one single vector field case and show that the interactions can be broadly divided into two groups, namely the ones obtained from a direct extension of the generalized Proca terms and genuine multi-Proca interactions with no correspondence in the single Proca case. We also discuss the curved spacetime version of the interactions to include the necessary non-minimal couplings to gravity. Finally, we explore the cosmological applications and show that there are three different vector field configurations giving rise to isotropic solutions. Two of them have already been considered in the literature and the third one, representing a combination of the first two, is new and offers unexplored cosmological scenarios.

Spontaneous current in an holographics+psuperfluid

We study a Maxwell-Proca action in an asymptotically AdS black hole background. When moving the temperature of the black hole, we find rich phase diagrams having, that depend strongly on the dimension of the operator dual to the Proca field . We present different solutions in the bulk that correspond to the holographic dual for $s$, $p$ or $s+p$-wave superfluids. In the last case we observe the onset of a spontaneously induced current.

Static and rotating solutions for vector-Galileon theories

We consider a particular truncation of the generalized Proca field theory in four dimensions for which we construct a static and axisymmetric rotating black hole "stealth solutions", namely solutions with (Anti) de Sitter or Kerr metric but non-trivial vector field. The static configuration is promoted to a backreacting black hole with asymptotic (Anti) de Sitter behavior by turning on a nonlinear electrodynamic source given as a fixed power of the Maxwell invariant. Finally we extend our solutions to arbitrary dimensions.

Charged Proca stars

In this paper, we study gauged solutions associated to a massive vector field representing a spin-one condensate, namely the Proca field. We focus on regular spherically-symmetric solutions which we construct either using a self-interaction potential or general relativity in order to glue the solutions together. We start generating non-gravitating solutions, so-called, Proca Q-balls and charged Proca Q-balls. Then, we turn-on backreaction on the metric, allowing gravity to hold together the Proca condensate, to study the so-called Proca stars, charged Proca stars, Proca Q-stars and charged Proca Q-stars.

On infrared problems of effective Lagrangians of massive spin 2 fields coupled to gauge fields

In this paper we analyze the interactions of massive spin-2 particles charged under both Abelian and non-Abelian group using the Porrati–Rahman Lagrangian. This theory is valid up to an intrinsic cutoff scale. Phenomenologically a theory valid up to a cutoff scale is sensible as all known higher spin particles are non-fundamental and it is shown that indeed this action can be used to estimate some relevant cross section. Such action necessarily includes Stückelberg field and therefore it is necessary to fix the corresponding gauge symmetry. We show that this theory, when the Stückelberg symmetry is gauge-fixed, possesses a non-trivial infrared problem. A gauge fixing ambiguity arises which is akin to the Gribov problem in QCD in the Abelian case as well. In some cases (such as when the space–time is the four-dimensional torus) the vacuum copies can be found analytically. A similar phenomenon also appears in the case of Proca fields. A very interesting feature of these copies is that they arise only for “large enough” gauge potentials. This opens the possibility to avoid the appearance of such gauge fixing ambiguities by using a Gribov–Zwanziger like approach.

Asymptotically anti–de Sitter Proca stars

We show that complex, massive spin-1 fields minimally coupled to Einstein's gravity with a negative cosmological constant, admit asymptotically anti-de Sitter self-gravitating solutions. Focusing on 4-dimensional spacetimes, we start by obtaining analytical solutions in the test-field limit, where the Proca field equations can be solved in a fixed anti-de Sitter background, and then find fully non-linear solutions numerically. These solutions are a natural extension of the recently found asymptotically flat Proca stars and share similar properties with scalar boson stars. In particular, we show that they are stable against spherically symmetric linear perturbations for a range of fundamental frequencies limited by their point of maximum mass. We finish with an overview of the behavior of Proca stars in $5$ dimensions.

Analogue black holes in relativistic BECs: Mimicking Killing and universal horizons

Relativistic Bose-Einstein condensates (rBECs) have recently become a well-established system for analogue gravity. Indeed, while such relativistic systems cannot be yet realized experimentally, they provide an interesting framework for mimicking metrics for which no analogue is yet available, so paving the way for further theoretical and numerical explorations. In this vein, we here discuss black holes in rBECs and explore how their features relate to the bulk properties of the system. We then propose the coupling of external fields to the rBEC as a way to mimic non-metric features. In particular, we use a Proca field to simulate an aether field, as found in Einstein-Aether or Horava-Lifshitz gravity. This allows us to mimic a universal horizon, the causal barrier relevant for superluminal modes in these modified gravitational theories.

Wave Equations for Classical Two-Component Proca Fields in Curved Spacetimes with Torsionless Affinities

The world formulation of the full theory of classical Proca fields in generally relativistic spacetimes is concisely reviewed and the entire set of pertinent field equations is transcribed in a straightforward way into the framework of one of the Infeld-van der Waerden formalisms. Some well-known calculational techniques are then utilized for deriving the wave equations that control the propagation of the fields allowed for. It appears that no interaction couplings between such fields and electromagnetic curvatures are carried by the wave equations at issue. What results is, in effect, that the only interactions which ultimately occur in the theoretical context under consideration involve strictly Proca fields and wave functions for gravitons.

Tunneling Radiation of Massive Vector Bosons from Dilaton Black Holes**Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 11205048

It is well known that Hawking radiation can be treated as a quantum tunneling process of particles from the event horizon of black hole. In this paper, we attempt to apply the massive vector bosons tunneling method to study the Hawking radiation from the non-rotating and rotating dilaton black holes. Starting with the Proca field equation that govern the dynamics of massive vector bosons, we derive the tunneling probabilities and radiation spectrums of the emitted vector bosons from the static spherical symmetric dilatonic black hole, the rotating Kaluza—Klein black hole, and the rotating Kerr—Sen black hole. Comparing the results with the blackbody spectrum, we satisfactorily reproduce the Hawking temperatures of these dilaton black holes, which are consistent with the previous results in the literature.

Hawking radiation of massive vector particles from the linear dilaton black holes

By using the tunneling formalism, we calculated the massive vector particles’ Hawking radiation from the non-rotating and rotating linear dilaton black holes. By applying the WKB approximation to the Proca field equation that govern the dynamics of massive vector bosons, we derive the tunneling probabilities and radiation spectrums of the emitted vector particles from the linear dilaton black holes. The Hawking temperatures of the linear dilaton black holes have been recovered, which are consistent with the previous results in the literature. This means that the vector particles’ tunneling method can also be used in studying the Hawking radiation of asymptotically non-flat and non-AdS black holes.

Kerr black holes with Proca hair

Bekenstein proved that in Einstein's gravity minimally coupled to one (or many) real, Abelian, Proca field, stationary black holes (BHs) cannot have Proca hair. Dropping Bekenstein's assumption that matter inherits spacetime symmetries, we show this model admits asymptotically flat, stationary, axi-symmetric, regular on and outside an event horizon BHs with Proca hair, for an even number of real (or an arbitrary number of complex) Proca fields. To establish it, we start by showing that a test, complex Proca field can form bound states, with real frequency, around Kerr BHs: stationary Proca clouds. These states exist at the threshold of superradiance. It was conjectured in [, ], that the existence of such clouds at the linear level implies the existence of a new family of BH solutions at the nonlinear level. We confirm this expectation and explicitly construct examples of such Kerr BHs with Proca hair (KBHsPH). For a single complex Proca field, these BHs form a countable number of families with three continuous parameters (ADM mass, ADM angular momentum and Noether charge). They branch off from the Kerr solutions that can support stationary Proca clouds and reduce to Proca stars [] when the horizon size vanishes. We present the domain of existence of one family of KBHsPH, as well as its phase space in terms of ADM quantities. Some physical properties of the solutions are discussed; in particular, and in contrast with Kerr BHs with scalar hair, some spacetime regions can be counter-rotating with respect to the horizon. We further establish a no-Proca-hair theorem for static, spherically symmetric BHs but allowing the complex Proca field to have a harmonic time dependence, which shows BHs with Proca hair in this model require rotation and have no static limit. KBHsPH are also disconnected from Kerr–Newman BHs with a real, massless vector field.