Mass and Weak Field Limit of Boson Stars in Brans Dicke Gravity

Abstract

We study boson stars in Brans Dicke gravity and use them to illustrate some of the properties of three different mass definitions: the Schwarzschild mass, the Keplerian mass and the Tensor mass. We analyse the weak field limit of the solutions and show that only the Tensor mass leads to a physically reasonable definition of the binding energy. We examine numerically strong field $\omega=-1$ solutions and show how, in this extreme case, the three mass values and the conserved particle number behave as a function of the central boson field amplitude. The numerical studies imply that for $\omega=-1$, solutions with extremal Tensor mass also have extremal particle number. This is a property that a physically reasonable definition of the mass of a boson star must have, and we prove analytically that this is true for all values of $\omega$. The analysis supports the conjecture that the Tensor mass uniquely describes the total energy of an asymptotically flat solution in BD gravity.