Eur. Phys. J. C (2016) 76: 697
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-016-4549-z

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Equilibrium and stability of relativistic stars in extended theories of gravity

¹ Institute of Physics, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Plac Marii Curie-Sklodowskiej 1, 20-031, Lublin, Poland
² INFN Sez. di Napoli, Univ. di Monte S. Angelo, Ed. G, Via Cinthia, 80126, Napoli, Italy
³ Dipartimento di Fisica “E. Pancini”, Universita’ di Napoli Federico II, Complesso Universitario di Monte S. Angelo, Via Cinthia 9, 80126, Naples, Italy
⁴ Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (UFES), Av. Fernando Ferrari S/N, Vitória, 29075-910, Brazil

^* e-mail: velten@pq.cnpq.br

Received: 29 July 2016
Accepted: 1 December 2016
Published online: 18 December 2016

Abstract

We study static, spherically symmetric equilibrium configurations in extended theories of gravity (ETG) following the notation introduced by Capozziello et al. We calculate the differential equations for the stellar structure in such theories in a very generic form i.e., the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff generalization for any ETG is introduced. Stability analysis is also investigated with special focus on the particular example of scalar–tensor gravity.