Black Holes with Quantum Massive Spin-2 Hair

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that black holes can have a quantum mechanical 'hair' associated with a massive spin-2 field, detectable via a stringy Aharonov-Bohm effect, extending the concept of black hole uniqueness.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of quantum massive spin-2 hair for black holes and describes a string-based detection method analogous to the Aharonov-Bohm effect.

Findings

Black holes can possess long-range quantum hair linked to massive spin-2 fields.

The effect persists regardless of the spin-2 field's mass.

An analogous effect exists for massive antisymmetric two-form fields.

Abstract

We show that black holes can posses a long range quantum mechanical hair associated with a massive spin-2 field, which can be detected by a stringy generalization of the Aharovon-Bohm effect, in which a string loop lassoes the black hole. The long distance effect persist for arbitrarily high mass of the spin-2 field. An analogous effect is exhibited by a massive antisymmetric two-form field. We make a close parallel between the two and the ordinary Aharonov-Bohm phenomenon, and also show that in the latter case the effect can be experienced even by the electrically-neutral particles, provided some boundary terms are added to the action.