Equilibrium stellar configurations in Rastall theory and astrophysical implications
Abstract
Rastall theory propounded some five decades ago belongs to a class of modified theories of gravity. Such theories are motivated by the need to modify general relativity suitably in order to address some problems not explained by the standard theory. Amongst such issues are the observed accelerated expansion of the universe, motion in extremely high gravity regimes and explanations for the discrepancy in the value of the cosmological constant between quantum gravity and experimentation. Recently, it has been claimed that the Rastall theory is trivially equivalent to the standard Einstein theory. We investigate this claim in the context of stellar structure and elementary requirements for physical plausibility. We consider the analogue of the Saslaw et al. [Astrophys. J.471, 571 (1996)] isothermal model of general relativity and show that the Rastall version satisfies the basic requirements unlike its counterpart. Then, we examine in turn the consequences of suppressing one of the inverse square law fall off of the energy density or the linear equation of state. Imposing a linear barotropic equation of state, we find a generalized de Sitter spacetime as an exact solution of the Rastall equations. In addition, the case of a constant spatial gravitational potential is studied. In each case, we note that the physics of the Rastall model differs from that of the Einstein version.
