Critical behavior of gravitating sphalerons

TL;DR

This paper studies the gravitational collapse of sphaleron configurations in Einstein--Yang--Mills--Higgs theory, revealing multiple critical transitions and new stable endstates like sphalerons and hairy black holes.

Contribution

It demonstrates the existence of multiple critical solutions and new stable endstates in the gravitational collapse of sphalerons, expanding understanding of critical phenomena in this model.

Findings

Identification of three different critical transitions.

Discovery of stable sphaleron as a possible endstate.

Existence of stable hairy black holes in the model.

Abstract

We examine the gravitational collapse of sphaleron type configurations in Einstein--Yang--Mills--Higgs theory. Working in spherical symmetry, we investigate the critical behavior in this model. We provide evidence that for various initial configurations, there can be three different critical transitions between possible endstates with different critical solutions sitting on the threshold between these outcomes. In addition, we show that within the dispersive and black hole regimes, there are new possible endstates, namely a stable, regular sphaleron and a stable, hairy black hole.