A conservative energy-momentum tensor in the $f(R,T)$ gravity and its implications for the phenomenology of neutron stars

Understand

The solutions for the Tolmann-Oppenheimer-Volkoff (TOV) equation bring valuable informations about the macroscopical features of compact astrophysical objects as neutron stars.

• They are sensitive to both the equation of state considered for nuclear matter and the background gravitational theory.
• In this work we construct the TOV equation for a conservative version of the $f(R,T)$ gravity.
• While the non-vanishing of the covariant derivative of the $f(R,T)$ energy-momentum tensor yields, in a cosmological perspective, the prediction of creation of matter throughout the universe evolution as shown by T.