Department of Physics2024-11-0920222470-001010.1103/PhysRevD.105.0240462-s2.0-85123823527https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14288/69Spontaneous scalarization is a mechanism that allows a scalar field to go undetected in weak gravity environments and yet develop a nontrivial configuration in strongly gravitating systems. At the perturbative level it manifests as a tachyonic instability around spacetimes that solve Einstein's equations. The endpoint of this instability is a nontrivial scalar field configuration that can significantly modify a compact object's structure and can produce observational signatures of the scalar field's presence. Does such a mechanism exists for vector fields? Here we revisit the model that constitutes the most straightforward generalization of the original scalarization model to a vector field and perform a perturbative analysis. We show that a ghost appears as soon as the square of the naive effective mass squared becomes negative anywhere. This result poses a serious obstacle in generalizing spontaneous scalarization to vector fields.pdfAstronomy and astrophysicsPhysicsJournal Article2470-0029https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.105.024046747807800002N/ANOIR03526