On the weak and strong field effects in antiscalar background

Abstract

The triumph of general relativity under the banner "gravity is geometry" began with confirming the crucial effects within the Solar system and proceeded recently to the strong-field shadow effect for the compact object in the center of the Milky Way. Here, we examine some of those phenomena for the Einstein-scalar equations in the antiscalar regime to reveal the difference from vacuum both in weak and strong fields. As a result, we find that for week-field perihelion shift the difference between vacuum and antiscalar cases proves to be observationally imperceptible in practice, even for S-cluster stars with high eccentricities, and even if accumulated over a century. In strong-field case, we reconsider the shadow effect (this time without involving complex-valued scalar field) as the most perspective from an observational viewpoint. Even though the resulting difference is quite appreciable (about 5%), no conclusion can be made until the mass of the central object is known with the accuracy an order of magnitude higher than the currently available.

Comments: Accepted in GRG