The presence of axionic field can provide plausible explanation to several long standing problems in physics such as dark matter and dark energy. The pseudo-scalar axion whose derivative corresponds to the Hodge dual of the Kalb-Ramond field strength in four dimensions plays crucial roles in explaining several astrophysical and cosmological observations. Therefore, the detection of axionic hairs/Kalb-Ramond field which appears as closed string excitations in the heterotic string spectrum may provide a profound insight to our understanding of the current universe. The current level of precision achieved in solar-system based tests employed to test general relativity, is not sufficient to detect the presence of axion. However, the near horizon regime of quasars where the curvature effects are maximum seems to be a natural laboratory to probe such additions to the matter sector. The continuum spectrum emitted from the accretion disk around quasars encapsulates the imprints of the background spacetime and hence acts as a storehouse of information regarding the nature of gravitational interaction in extreme situations. The surfeit of data available in the electromagnetic domain provides a further motivation to explore such systems. Using the optical data for eighty Palomar Green quasars we demonstrate that the theoretical estimates of optical luminosity explain the observations best when the axionic field is assumed to be absent. However, axion which violates the energy condition seems to be favored by observations which has several interesting consequences. Error estimators, including reduced $χ^{2}$, Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency, index of agreement and modified versions of the last two are used to solidify our conclusion and the implications of our result are discussed.
Static, charged black holes in the presence of a negative cosmological constant and with a planar horizon are found in four dimensions. The solutions have scalar secondary hair. We claim that these constitute the planar version of the Martinez-Troncoso-Zanelli black holes, only known up to now for a curved event horizon in four dimensions. Their planar version is rendered possible due to the presence of two, equal and homogeneously distributed, axionic charges dressing the flat horizon. The solutions are presented in the conformal and minimal frame and their basic properties and thermodynamics…
We construct and analyse Kerr black holes (BHs) with synchronised axionic hair. These are the BH generalisations of the recently constructed rotating axion boson stars arXiv:2005.05982. Such BHs are stationary, axially symmetric, asymptotically flat solutions of the complex Einstein-Klein-Gordon theory with a QCD axion-like potential. They are regular everywhere on and outside the event horizon. The potential is characterised by two parameters: the mass of the axion-like particle, $m_a$ and the decay constant $f_a$. The limit $f_a \rightarrow \infty$ recovers the original example of Kerr BHs w…
From rotating attractors to extremal black holes with axionic hair
Center for Research and Development in Mathematics and Applications (CIDMA), Department of Mathematics, University of Aveiro（阿威罗大学数学与数学应用研究与发展中心（CIDMA）数学系）
Detection of axion field can unfold intriguing facets of our universe in several astrophysical and cosmological scenarios. In four dimensions, such a field owes its origin to the completely anti-symmetric Kalb-Ramond field strength tensor. Its invisibility in the solar system based tests compels one to look for its signatures in the strong field regime. The recent observation of the shadow of the supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87 ushers in a new opportunity to test for the footprints of axion in the near horizon region of black holes, where the gravity is expected to be strong. In this…
Ultralight axion like particles (ALPs) of mass $m_a\in (10^{-21}\rm{eV}-10^{-22}\rm{eV})$ with axion decay constant $f_a\sim 10^{17}\rm{GeV}$ can be candidates for fuzzy dark matter (FDM). If celestial bodies like Earth and Sun are immersed in a low mass axionic FDM potential and if the ALPs have coupling with nucleons then the coherent oscillation of the axionic field results a long range axion hair outside of the celestial bodies. The range of the axion mediated Yukawa type fifth force is determined by the distance between the Earth and the Sun which fixes the upper bound of the mass of axio…
The coupling between scalar and vector fields has a long and interesting history. Axions are one key possibility to solve the strong CP problem and axion-like particles could be one solution to the dark matter puzzle. Given the nature of the coupling, and the universality of free fall, nontrivial important effects are expected in regions where gravity is strong. Here, we show that i. A background EM field induces an axionic instability in flat space, for large enough electric fields. Conversely, a homogeneous harmonic axion field induces an instability in the Maxwell sector. When carried over …
Spontaneous scalarization of black holes in scalar-Gauss-Bonnet (sGB) gravity is a very interesting phenomenon allowing black holes to circumvent the no-hair theorem and acquire scalar hair while leaving the weak field regime of the theory practically unaltered. It was recently shown that if we allow for a different form of the coupling between the scalar field and the Gauss-Bonnet invariant, a new type of scalarization is possible beyond the standard one that can be excited only nonlinearly. In this case the spectrum of black hole solutions can be more complicated, naturally opening the quest…
The Kerr-Sen black hole is a rotating charged black hole solution arising from heterotic string theory. In 4-dimensions effective theory the bosonic fields are: a $U(1)$ gauge boson, a Kalb-Ramond 3-form which is equivalent to a pseudoscalar axion in 4-dimensions, the dilaton and the graviton. The coupling constants in the theory are $α^{\prime}$ (inverse string tension) and $κ$ (inverse reduced Planck mass in 4-dimensions) and the charge of the $U(1)$ field and the axion-photon coupling are related to these two. Sen found a black hole solution (the Kerr-Sen black hole) with these fields as th…
If a black hole has hair, how short can this hair be? A partial answer to this intriguing question was recently provided by the 'no-short hair' theorem which asserts that the external fields of a spherically-symmetric electrically neutral hairy black-hole configuration must extend beyond the null circular geodesic which characterizes the corresponding black-hole spacetime. One naturally wonders whether the no-short hair inequality $r_{\text{hair}}>r_{\text{null}}$ is a generic property of all electrically neutral hairy black-hole spacetimes? In this paper we provide evidence that the answer to…
There exist well-known no-hair theorems forbidding the existence of hairy black hole solutions in general relativity coupled to a scalar conformal field theory in asymptotically flat space. Even in the presence of cosmological constant, where no-hair theorems can usually be circumvented and black holes with conformal scalar hair were shown to exist in dimensions three and four, no-go results were reported for D>4. In this paper we prove that these obstructions can be evaded and we answer in the affirmative a question that remained open: Whether hairy black holes do exist in general relativity …
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 al…
In the light of the "no-hair" conjecture, we revisit stable black holes in su(N) Einstein-Yang-Mills theory with a negative cosmological constant. These black holes are endowed with copious amounts of gauge field hair, and we address the question of whether these black holes can be uniquely characterized by their mass and a set of global non-Abelian charges defined far from the black hole. For the su(3) case, we present numerical evidence that stable black hole configurations are fixed by their mass and two non-Abelian charges. For general N, we argue that the mass and N-1 non-Abelian charges …
Can a black hole that suffers a superradiant instability evolve towards a 'hairy' configuration which is stable? We address this question in the context of Einstein-charged scalar field theory. First, we describe a family of static black hole solutions which possess charged scalar-field hair confined within a mirror-like boundary. Next, we derive a set of equations which govern the linear, spherically symmetric perturbations of these hairy solutions. We present numerical evidence which suggests that, unlike the vacuum solutions, the (single-node) hairy solutions are stable under linear perturb…
Behaviour of Dirac fermions in the background of a charged black string penetrated by an Abelian Higgs vortex is elaborated. One finds the evidence that the system under consideration can support fermion fields acting like a superconducting cosmic string in the sence that a nontrivial Dirac fermion field can be carried by the system in question. The case of nonextremal and extremal black string vortex systems were considered. The influence of electric and Higgs charge, the winding number and the fermion mass on the fermion localization near the black string event horizon was studied. It turned…
Effective theory of fluctuations based on underlying symmetry plays very important role in understanding the low energy phenomena. Using this powerful technique we study the fluctuation dynamics keeping in mind the following central question: does the effective theory of black hole provide any information about the possible existence of hair? Assuming the symmetry of the hair being that of the underlying black hole space-time, we start by writing down the most general action for the background and the fluctuation in the effective field theory framework. Considering the asymptotically flat and …
We discuss with a rather critical eye the current situation of black hole (BH) solutions in $f(R)$ gravity and shed light about its geometrical and physical significance. We also argue about the meaning, existence or lack thereof of a Birkhoff's theorem in this kind of modified gravity. We focus then on the analysis and quest of $non-trivial$ (i.e. hairy) $asymptotically\,\,flat$ (AF) BH solutions in static and spherically symmetric (SSS) spacetimes in vacuum having the property that the Ricci scalar does $not$ vanish identically in the domain of outer communication. To do so, we provide and e…
Chern-Simons gravity rotating Kerr-type black hole solutions are revisited from the point of view of their scalarization, namely examining the back reaction of pseudoscalar axion fields on the rotating geometry. To lowest order in an angular momentum expansion, and a long range approximation for both the axion field configuration and its back reaction onto the metric, such solutions had been discussed for the first time in the context of string theory. In this work, we extend the analysis to give analytic expressions for slowly rotating black holes outside the horizon, which formally include a…
An old result ({\tt astro-ph/9905303}) by Jacobson implies that a black hole with Schwarzschild radius $r_s$ acquires scalar hair, $Q \propto r_s^2 μ$, when the (canonically normalized) scalar field in question is slowly time-dependent far from the black hole, $\partial_t ϕ\simeq μM_p$ with $μr_s \ll 1$ time-independent. Such a time dependence could arise in scalar-tensor theories either from cosmological evolution, or due to the slow motion of the black hole within an asymptotic spatial gradient in the scalar field. Most remarkably, the amount of scalar hair so induced is independent of the s…
Black holes play a crucial role in the understanding of the gravitational interaction. Through the direct observation of the shadow of a black hole by the event horizon telescope and the detection of gravitational waves of merging black holes we now start to have direct access to their properties and behaviour, which means the properties and behaviour of gravity. This further raised the demand for models to compare with those observations. In this respect, an important question regarding black holes properties is to know if they can support "hairs". While this is famously forbidden in general …
