Gravitational memory in generalized Proca gravity
We investigate the gravitational memory effect in the full generalized Proca gravity, the most general metric theory including a gravitational Proca field with derivative self-interactions that still maintains second-order equations of motion. Building on our previous works on memory in other massless and massive metric theories, we extend a unified framework for computing displacement memory and apply it to generalized Proca gravity. We identify two nontrivial, physically distinct classes of background conditions of generalized Proca theory within the assumption of asymptotic flatness: a Lorentz-invariant but massive case, and a Lorentz-violating, massless case. The former exhibits dispersive scalar and vector modes and allows a Horndeski-like treatment of memory, while the latter resembles the asymptotic dynamics of Einstein-\AE{}ther theory, including the same Lorentz-breaking effects on displacement memory. In both cases, we derive the fully gauge-invariant and dynamical second-order action, derive the effective stress-energy tensor, and study its contribution to the memory integral. We highlight the distinction between phase and group velocity in the tensor memory formula sourced by dispersive propagating modes. Finally, we reemphasize how observational constraints on Lorentz violation may be imposed by the structure of the memory signal.
Authors
- Lavinia Heisenberg (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5766-8242)
- Jann Zosso (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2671-7531)
- Guangzi Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-1276-9012)
- Benedetta Rosatello (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-1227-8080)
Institutions
- University of Bern (CH)
- University of Padua (IT)
- Instituto de Física Teórica (ES)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical review. D/Physical review. D.
- Published
- 2025-11-25
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/k24l-h7yy
- Primary Topic
- Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- National Research Foundation
- Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
- Danmarks Grundforskningsfond