English

Ghost stars in general relativity

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2024-05-16 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

Abstract

We explore an idea put forward many years ago by Zeldovich and Novikov concerning the existence of compact objects endowed with arbitrarily small mass. The energy-density of such objects, which we call ``Ghost stars'', is negative in some regions of the fluid distribution, producing a vanishing total mass. Thus, the interior is matched on the boundary surface to Minkowski space-time. Some exact analytical solutions are exhibited and their properties are analyzed. Observational data that could confirm or dismiss the existence of this kind of stellar object is commented.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2405.09480,
  title  = {Ghost stars in general relativity},
  author = {L. Herrera and A. Di Prisco and J. Ospino},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.09480},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

19 pages Latex. Invited contribution published in Symmetry (SI: The Nuclear Physics of Neutron Stars)

R2 v1 2026-06-28T16:28:26.660Z