D-BIonic Screening of Scalar Fields

Abstract: We study a new screening mechanism which is present in Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI)-like theories. A scalar field with a DBI-like Lagrangian is minimally coupled to matter. In the vicinity of sufficiently dense sources, non-linearities in the scalar dominate and result in an approximately constant acceleration on a test particle, thereby suppressing the scalar force relative to gravity. Unlike generic P(X) theories, screening happens within the regime of validity of the effective field theory, thanks to the DBI symmetry. This symmetry also allows the removal of a constant field gradient, like in galileons. Not surprisingly, perturbations around the spherically-symmetry background propagate superluminally, but we argue for a chronology protection analogous to galileons. We derive constraints on the theory parameters from tests of gravity and discuss various extensions.