A new spin on black hole hair

Abstract

We show that scalar hair can be added to rotating, vacuum black holes of general relativity. These hairy black holes (HBHs) clarify a lingering question concerning gravitational solitons: if a black hole can be added at the centre of a boson star, as it typically can for other solitons. We argue that it can, but only if it is spinning. The existence of such HBHs is related to the Kerr superradiant instability triggered by a massive scalar field. This connection leads to the following conjecture: a (hairless) black hole which is afflicted by the superradiant instability of a given field must allow hairy generalizations with that field.

9 pages, 1 figure, Essay written for the Gravity Research Foundation 2014 Awards for Essays on Gravitation and selected for Honorable Mention

Cited by in corpus (40)

• Black holes with scalar hair in light of the Event Horizon Telescope
• Shadows of Einstein-dilaton-Gauss-Bonnet black holes
• Chaotic lensing around boson stars and Kerr black holes with scalar hair
• Kerr-Newman scalar clouds
• Non-linear Q-clouds around Kerr black holes
• Iron K$\alpha$ line of Kerr black holes with scalar hair
• Myers-Perry black holes with scalar hair and a mass gap
• Stability of highly-charged Reissner-Nordström black holes to charged scalar perturbations
• The large-mass limit of cloudy black holes
• Extremal Kerr-Newman black holes with extremely short charged scalar hair
• Kerr-Newman black holes with scalar hair
• Myers-Perry black holes with scalar hair and a mass gap: unequal spins
• Spinning Kerr black holes with stationary massive scalar clouds: The large-coupling regime
• Charged massive scalar field configurations supported by a spherically symmetric charged reflecting shell
• Acoustic clouds: standing sound waves around a black hole analogue
• Stationary Charged Scalar Clouds around Black Holes in String Theory
• Kerr black holes with synchronised scalar hair and higher azimuthal harmonic index
• Analytic treatment of the system of a Kerr-Newman black hole and a charged massive scalar field
• No nonminimally coupled massless scalar hair for spherically symmetric neutral reflecting stars
• Scalar clouds around Kerr-Sen black holes
• No nonminimally coupled massless scalar hair for spherically symmetric neutral black holes
• Stationary scalar clouds around a BTZ black hole
• Symmetry inheritance of scalar fields
• Skyrmions, Skyrme stars and black holes with Skyrme hair in five spacetime dimension
• No hair for spherically symmetric neutral black holes: nonminimally coupled massive scalar fields
• Acoustic black-hole bombs and scalar clouds in a photon-fluid model
• Chains of Boson Stars
• Extremal Hairy Black Holes
• Rotating black holes with non-Abelian hair
• Ultra-spinning exotic compact objects supporting static massless scalar field configurations
• No hair for spherically symmetric neutral reflecting stars: nonminimally coupled massive scalar fields
• Two Schwarzschild-like black holes balanced by their scalar hair
• No-go theorem for static boson stars
• The spinning Kerr-black-hole-mirror bomb: A lower bound on the radius of the reflecting mirror
• Analytical Study of a Kerr-Sen Black Hole and a Charged Massive Scalar Field
• No-short scalar hair theorem for spinning acoustic black holes in a photon-fluid model
• Stationary scalar clouds supported by rapidly-rotating acoustic black holes in a photon-fluid model
• No-go theorem for spatially regular boson stars made of static nonminimally coupled massive scalar fields
• $D=5$ static, charged black holes, strings and rings with resonant, scalar $Q$-hair
• How short can stationary charged scalar hair be?