Spontaneous scalarisation of charged black holes

TL;DR

This paper investigates spontaneous scalarisation of charged black holes within Einstein-Maxwell-scalar models, demonstrating dynamic evolution from Reissner-Nordström black holes to stable scalarised states and discovering non-spherical, non-isometric scalarised black hole solutions.

Contribution

It provides the first fully non-linear numerical simulations of scalarisation in EMS models and uncovers a rich structure of non-spherical scalarised black holes with thermodynamic preference.

Findings

Reissner-Nordström black holes evolve into stable scalarised black holes.

Existence of non-spherical, static scalarised black holes without spatial symmetries.

Scalarised black holes form an infinite number of solution branches.

Abstract

Extended scalar-tensor-Gauss-Bonnet (eSTGB) gravity has been recently argued to exhibit spontaneous scalarisation of vacuum black holes (BHs). A similar phenomenon can be expected in a larger class of models, which includes e.g. Einstein-Maxwell-scalar (EMS) models, where spontaneous scalarisation of electrovacuum BHs should occur. EMS models have no higher curvature corrections, a technical simplification over eSTGB models that allows us to investigate, fully non-linearly, BH scalarisation in two novel directions. Firstly, numerical simulations in spherical symmetry show, dynamically, that Reissner-Nordstr\"om (RN) BHs evolve into a perturbatively stable scalarised BH. Secondly, we compute the non-spherical sector of static scalarised BH solutions bifurcating from the RN BH trunk. Scalarised BHs form an infinite (countable) number of branches, and possess a large freedom in their multipole structure. Unlike the case of electrovacuum, the EMS model admits static, asymptotically flat, regular on and outside the horizon BHs without spherical symmetry and even without any spatial isometries, which are thermodynamically preferred over the electrovacuum state. We speculate on a possible dynamical role of these non-spherical scalarised BHs.