23.10.2019 Neutron Star Structure in Scalar-Tensor Theories

Neutron stars constitute an important class of extreme relativistic objects allowing one to examine the theories of gravitation in the strong field regime. Their supranuclear densities stemming from their large masses and small radii make them also interesting laboratories for matter under extreme conditions which is modelled by different equations of states (EoS). Such extreme conditions make the determination of EoS a difficult problem in nuclear physics but, on the other hand, the studies in this direction may allow, for example, to constrain even dark matter models in a way that is inaccessible to terrestrial or cosmological probes. We study the structure of neutron stars in a special class of the scalar-tensor theories for three realistic EoS and the Higgs-like potential. Using the observational bounds on the mass and the radius of the neutron stars, we put some limits on the parameters of the model.