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  • Open Access

Spacetime of rotating black holes surrounded by massive scalar charges

Adrian Ka-Wai Chung*

  • DAMTP, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge CB3 0WA, United Kingdom

  • *Contact author: kwc43@cam.ac.uk

Phys. Rev. D 113, 095032 – Published 26 May, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/4qbd-f98r

Abstract

Massive scalar charges are ubiquitous in extensions to general relativity and the Standard Model in particle physics. We describe spectral methods which can accurately construct the spacetime of rotating black holes with dimensionless spin up to a≤0.8 surrounded by massive scalar fields nonminimally coupled to spacetime curvature. We consider axi-dilaton, dynamical Chern-Simons, and scalar Gauss-Bonnet couplings, and obtain leading-order solutions for both the scalar field and the associated metric modifications. Our method accurately resolves massive scalar fields with Compton wavelengths as short as 5 times the black hole mass, achieving residual errors ≲10−5, and yields the corresponding leading-order spacetime modifications with residual errors ≲10−3. Using the constructed spacetimes, we computes the leading-order shifts in the surface gravity and the angular velocity of the event horizon, important information for computing the quasinormal modes. These results pave the way to incorporate massive scalar charges into electromagnetic observations and gravitational-wave detections of black holes, potentially enabling new probes of fundamental scalar degrees of freedom.

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