Pith. sign in

REVIEW 6 cited by

The intrinsic pathology of self-interacting vector fields

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 2205.07784 v4 pith:ZTQICGOH submitted 2022-05-16 gr-qc hep-th

classification gr-qchep-th
keywords vectorfieldfieldsself-interactingunphysicalwhenalarmingarises
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
0 comments
read the original abstract

We show that self-interacting vector field theories exhibit unphysical behaviour even when they are not coupled to any external field. This means any theory featuring such vectors is in danger of being unphysical, an alarming prospect for many proposals in cosmology, gravity, high energy physics and beyond. The problem arises when vector fields with healthy configurations naturally reach a point where time evolution is mathematically ill-defined. We develop tools to easily identify this issue, and provide a simple and unifying framework to investigate it.

Discussion (0). Sign in to comment.

Forward citations

Cited by 6 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

  1. No-go theorem for spontaneous vectorization

    gr-qc 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 8.0 of 10

    A no-go theorem shows that negative effective mass squared for the vector field in vector-tensor gravity always accompanies ghost or gradient instabilities, blocking spontaneous vectorization in stationary axisymmetri...

  2. Black holes and neutron stars in massive Hellings-Nordtvedt theory

    gr-qc 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 7.0 of 10

    Field equation analysis near infinity in massive Hellings-Nordtvedt theory restricts the model to two single-coupling sectors; the A²R sector yields asymptotically flat Schwarzschild black holes with radial vector fie...

  3. Potentially healthy time evolution in interacting $p$-form fields

    gr-qc 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 6.0 of 10

    In 4D spacetime, 3-form fields admit healthy time evolution under specific self-interactions while 2-form fields lose hyperbolicity with analogous terms.

  4. Black holes and neutron stars in massive Hellings-Nordtvedt theory

    gr-qc 2026-05 reject novelty 6.0 of 10

    In massive Hellings-Nordtvedt theory, a nonzero vector vacuum asymptotically forbids both curvature-vector couplings at once, and the A²R sector yields Schwarzschild-like black holes plus neutron stars that can deviat...

  5. Constraining Dark Photon Dark Matter with Radio Silence from Soliton Mergers around Supermassive Black Holes

    hep-ph 2025-09 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Non-observation of radio bursts from soliton mergers around supermassive black holes constrains dark photon solitons to make up less than about 1% of dark matter, with future surveys reaching 0.2%.

  6. Dark matter and modified gravity: Einstein clusters from a non-minimally coupled vector field

    gr-qc 2025-05 unverdicted novelty 6.0 of 10

    A non-minimally coupled vector field reproduces Einstein cluster dynamics that account for flat galactic rotation curves.

Pith tools