Skyrmions around Kerr black holes and spinning BHs with Skyrme hair

Abstract

Abstract We study solutions of the Einstein-Skyrme model. Firstly we consider test field Skyrmions on the Kerr background. These configurations — hereafter dubbed Skerrmions — can be in equilibrium with a Kerr black hole (BH) by virtue of a synchronisation condition. We consider two sectors for Skerrmions. In the sector with non-zero baryon charge, Skerrmions are akin to the known Skyrme solutions on the Schwarzschild background. These “topological” configurations reduce to flat spacetime Skyrmions in a vanishing BH mass limit; moreoever, they never become “small” perturbations on the Kerr background: the non-linearities of the Skyrme model are crucial for all such Skerrmions. In the non-topological sector, on the other hand, Skerrmions have no analogue on the Schwarzschild background. Non-topological Skerrmions carry not baryon charge and bifurcate from a subset of Kerr solutions defining an existence line. Therein the appropriate truncation of the Skyrme model yield a linear scalar field theory containing a complex plus a real field, both massive and decoupled, and the Skerrmions reduce to the known stationary scalar clouds around Kerr BHs. Moreover, non-topological Skerrmions trivialise in the vanishing BH mass limit. We then discuss the backreaction of these Skerrmions, that yield rotating BHs with synchronised Skyrme hair, which continously connect to the Kerr solution (self-gravitating Skyrmions) in the non-topological (topological) sector. In particular, the non-topological hairy BHs provide a non-linear realisation, within the Skyrme model, of the synchronous stationary scalar clouds around Kerr.