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On the number of light rings in curved spacetimes of ultra-compact objects

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arxiv 1710.00836 v2 pith:NAEOYB3I submitted 2017-10-02 gr-qc astro-ph.HEhep-th

On the number of light rings in curved spacetimes of ultra-compact objects

classification gr-qc astro-ph.HEhep-th
keywords lightringsnumberobjectsringultra-compactdensitydimensionless
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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In a very interesting paper, Cunha, Berti, and Herdeiro have recently claimed that ultra-compact objects, self-gravitating horizonless solutions of the Einstein field equations which have a light ring, must possess at least {\it two} (and, in general, an even number of) light rings, of which the inner one is {\it stable}. In the present compact paper we explicitly prove that, while this intriguing theorem is generally true, there is an important exception in the presence of degenerate light rings which, in the spherically symmetric static case, are characterized by the simple dimensionless relation $8\pi r^2_{\gamma}(\rho+p_{\text{T}})=1$ [here $r_{\gamma}$ is the radius of the light ring and $\{\rho,p_{\text{T}}\}$ are respectively the energy density and tangential pressure of the matter fields]. Ultra-compact objects which belong to this unique family can have an {\it odd} number of light rings. As a concrete example, we show that spherically symmetric constant density stars with dimensionless compactness $M/R=1/3$ possess only {\it one} light ring which, interestingly, is shown to be {\it unstable}.

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