Bound orbits near black holes with scalar hair

Abstract

Abstract We consider spherically symmetric black holes with minimally coupled scalar fields and concentrate our attention on asymptotically flat self-gravitating configurations having the event horizons located at radii much smaller than 2m. We think of such configurations as rigorous mathematical models of the gravitating objects, surrounded by dark matter, in the centres of normal galaxies. It turns out that the radius of the event horizon of a scalar field black hole always less than the Schwarzschild radius of vacuum black hole of the same mass and can be arbitrary close to zero. In astronomical observations, a key role in distinguishing between black holes, wormholes, and naked singularities plays measuring parameters of bound quasiperiodic orbits, in particular, the shape of an orbit and the angle of precession of its pericentre. We consider a typical two-parameter family of compact scalar field black holes and compute numerically the shapes of some bound orbits. We find that a key feature of bound orbits around a compact black hole is that the angle between closest pericentre points is either negative or, at least, less than that for the Schwarzschild black hole of the same mass.