- Open Access
Stable black hole solutions with cosmological hair
Phys. Rev. D 114, 044072 – Published 24 August, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/mbsl-cr4q
Abstract
Dynamical dark energy theories generically introduce a time-dependent field that causes the accelerated expansion of the Universe on large scales. When embedding black hole solutions in such a cosmological spacetime, this time dependence naturally gives rise to cosmological hair; i.e. the local black hole physics is no longer controlled by just the mass and spin of the black hole but also impacted by the dark energy field. However, known such solutions are unstable. Focusing on the cubic Galileon as a concrete and illustrative example, we discuss the restrictions imposed on physical solutions by their regularity and stability in detail. We explicitly derive solutions that both recover the desired cosmological long-range behavior and give rise to well-behaved, regular and stable, short-range dynamics around black holes. We show how the nature of the scalar hair around these local black hole solutions encodes cosmological information, highlighting novel and tantalizing prospects of directly probing cosmological dynamics with black hole observations.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Article Text
References (97)
- W. Israel, Event horizons in static vacuum space-times, Phys. Rev. 164, 1776 (1967).
- B. Carter, Axisymmetric black hole has only two degrees of freedom, Phys. Rev. Lett. 26, 331 (1971).
- J. D. Bekenstein, Nonexistence of baryon number for static black holes, Phys. Rev. D 5, 1239 (1972).
- R. Ruffini and J. A. Wheeler, Introducing the black hole, Phys. Today 24, 1, 30 (1971).
- J. D. Bekenstein, Nonexistence of baryon number for black holes. II, Phys. Rev. D 5, 2403 (1972).
- D. C. Robinson, Uniqueness of the Kerr black hole, Phys. Rev. Lett. 34, 905 (1975).
- J. D. Bekenstein, Black hole hair: 25 years after, in Proceedings of the 2nd International Sakharov Conference on Physics (1996), pp. 216–219.
- L. Hui and A. Nicolis, No-hair theorem for the galileon, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 241104 (2013).
- T. P. Sotiriou and S.-Y. Zhou, Black hole hair in generalized scalar-tensor gravity, Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 251102 (2014).
- L. Capuano, L. Santoni, and E. Barausse, Black hole hairs in scalar-tensor gravity and the lack thereof, Phys. Rev. D 108, 064058 (2023).
- S. S. Yazadjiev and D. D. Doneva, No-hair theorems in general relativity and scalar–tensor theories, Int. J. Mod. Phys. D 34, 2530004 (2025).
- A. Maselli, H. O. Silva, M. Minamitsuji, and E. Berti, Slowly rotating black hole solutions in Horndeski gravity, Phys. Rev. D 92, 104049 (2015).
- E. J. Copeland, M. Sami, and S. Tsujikawa, Dynamics of dark energy, Int. J. Mod. Phys. D 15, 1753 (2006).
- T. Clifton, P. G. Ferreira, A. Padilla, and C. Skordis, Modified gravity and cosmology, Phys. Rep. 513, 1 (2012).
- E. O. Babichev, V. I. Dokuchaev, and Y. N. Eroshenko, Black holes in the presence of dark energy, Phys. Usp. 56, 1155 (2013).
- A. Joyce, B. Jain, J. Khoury, and M. Trodden, Beyond the cosmological standard model, Phys. Rep. 568, 1 (2015).
- K. Koyama, Cosmological tests of modified gravity, Rep. Prog. Phys. 79, 046902 (2016).
- T. Kobayashi, Horndeski theory and beyond: A review, Rep. Prog. Phys. 82, 086901 (2019).
- T. Jacobson, Primordial black hole evolution in tensor scalar cosmology, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 2699 (1999).
- E. Babichev and C. Charmousis, Dressing a black hole with a time-dependent Galileon, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2014) 106.
- G. Lara, G. Trenkler, and L. G. Trombetta, Primary black-hole scalar charges and kinetic screening in -essence-Gauss-Bonnet gravity, arXiv:2512.23683.
- T. Kobayashi and N. Tanahashi, Exact black hole solutions in shift symmetric scalar-tensor theories, Prog. Theor. Exp. Phys. 2014, 73E02 (2014).
- E. Babichev and G. Esposito-Farese, Cosmological self-tuning and local solutions in generalized Horndeski theories, Phys. Rev. D 95, 024020 (2017).
- J. Ben Achour and H. Liu, Hairy Schwarzschild-(A)dS black hole solutions in degenerate higher order scalar-tensor theories beyond shift symmetry, Phys. Rev. D 99, 064042 (2019).
- H. Motohashi and M. Minamitsuji, Exact black hole solutions in shift-symmetric quadratic degenerate higher-order scalar-tensor theories, Phys. Rev. D 99, 064040 (2019).
- C. Charmousis, M. Crisostomi, R. Gregory, and N. Stergioulas, Rotating black holes in higher order gravity, Phys. Rev. D 100, 084020 (2019).
- C. de Rham and J. Zhang, Perturbations of stealth black holes in degenerate higher-order scalar-tensor theories, Phys. Rev. D 100, 124023 (2019).
- K. Takahashi and H. Motohashi, General Relativity solutions with stealth scalar hair in quadratic higher-order scalar-tensor theories, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 06 (2020) 034.
- J. Khoury, M. Trodden, and S. S. C. Wong, Existence and instability of hairy black holes in shift-symmetric Horndeski theories, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 11 (2020) 044.
- K. Takahashi and H. Motohashi, Black hole perturbations in DHOST theories: Master variables, gradient instability, and strong coupling, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 08 (2021) 013.
- A. Bakopoulos, C. Charmousis, P. Kanti, N. Lecoeur, and T. Nakas, Black holes with primary scalar hair, Phys. Rev. D 109, 024032 (2024).
- S. Sirera and J. Noller, Stability and quasinormal modes for black holes with time-dependent scalar hair, Phys. Rev. D 111, 044067 (2025).
- H. Kobayashi, S. Mukohyama, J. Noller, S. Sirera, K. Takahashi, and V. Yingcharoenrat, Inverting no-hair theorems: How requiring general relativity solutions restricts scalar-tensor theories, Phys. Rev. D 111, 124022 (2025).
- C. Charmousis, S. Iteanu, D. Langlois, and K. Noui, Axial perturbations of black holes with primary scalar hair, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 05 (2025) 102.
- A. Nicolis, R. Rattazzi, and E. Trincherini, The Galileon as a local modification of gravity, Phys. Rev. D 79, 064036 (2009).
- E. Babichev, C. Charmousis, A. Lehébel, and T. Moskalets, Black holes in a cubic Galileon universe, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 09 (2016) 011.
- E. Babichev, G. Esposito-Farèse, I. Sawicki, and L. G. Trombetta, Large black-hole scalar charges induced by cosmology in Horndeski theories, Phys. Rev. D 112, 024043 (2025).
- L. Smulders, stable-black-holes-cosmological-hair. (2026). https://github.com/laurenssmulders/stable_black_holes_cosmological_hair.
- G. W. Horndeski, Second-order scalar-tensor field equations in a four-dimensional space, Int. J. Theor. Phys. 10, 363 (1974).
- C. Deffayet, X. Gao, D. A. Steer, and G. Zahariade, From k-essence to generalised Galileons, Phys. Rev. D 84, 064039 (2011).
- F. P. Silva and K. Koyama, Self-accelerating universe in galileon cosmology, Phys. Rev. D 80, 121301 (2009).
- A. De Felice and S. Tsujikawa, Cosmology of a covariant Galileon field, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 111301 (2010).
- C. Burrage and D. Seery, Revisiting fifth forces in the Galileon model, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 08 (2010) 011.
- E. Babichev and C. Deffayet, An introduction to the Vainshtein mechanism, Classical Quantum Gravity 30, 184001 (2013).
- M. A. Luty, M. Porrati, and R. Rattazzi, Strong interactions and stability in the DGP model, J. High Energy Phys. 09 (2003) 029.
- A. Nicolis and R. Rattazzi, Classical and quantum consistency of the DGP model, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2004) 059.
- C. de Rham and A. J. Tolley, DBI and the Galileon reunited, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 05 (2010) 015.
- C. Burrage, C. de Rham, D. Seery, and A. J. Tolley, Galileon inflation, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 01 (2011) 014.
- C. Burrage, C. de Rham, and L. Heisenberg, de Sitter Galileon, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 05 (2011) 025.
- C. de Rham and R. H. Ribeiro, Riding on irrelevant operators, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 11 (2014) 016.
- D. Pirtskhalava, L. Santoni, E. Trincherini, and F. Vernizzi, Weakly Broken Galileon Symmetry, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 09 (2015) 007.
- C. de Rham, G. Gabadadze, L. Heisenberg, and D. Pirtskhalava, Nonrenormalization and naturalness in a class of scalar-tensor theories, Phys. Rev. D 87, 085017 (2013).
- G. Goon, K. Hinterbichler, A. Joyce, and M. Trodden, Aspects of galileon non-renormalization, J. High Energy Phys. 11 (2016) 100.
- I. D. Saltas and V. Vitagliano, Covariantly quantum galileon, Phys. Rev. D 95, 105002 (2017).
- J. Noller and A. Nicola, Radiative stability and observational constraints on dark energy and modified gravity, Phys. Rev. D 102, 104045 (2020).
- L. Heisenberg and C. F. Steinwachs, Geometrized quantum Galileons, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 02 (2020) 031.
- L. Heisenberg, J. Noller, and J. Zosso, Horndeski under the quantum loupe, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2020) 010.
- G. Goon, S. Melville, and J. Noller, Quantum corrections to generic branes: DBI, NLSM, and more, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2021) 159.
- J. D. Bekenstein, Novel “no-scalar-hair” theorem for black holes, Phys. Rev. D 51, R6608 (1995).
- A. Barreira, B. Li, A. Sanchez, C. M. Baugh, and S. Pascoli, Parameter space in Galileon gravity models, Phys. Rev. D 87, 103511 (2013).
- D. Traykova, E. Bellini, P. G. Ferreira, C. García-García, J. Noller, and M. Zumalacárregui, Theoretical priors in scalar-tensor cosmologies: Shift-symmetric Horndeski models, Phys. Rev. D 104, 083502 (2021).
- E. Babichev and G. Esposito-Farèse, Time-dependent spherically symmetric covariant galileons, Phys. Rev. D 87, 044032 (2013).
- L. Smulders, J. Noller, and S. Sirera, Testing dark energy with black hole ringdown, arXiv:2603.23634.
- W. T. Emond, A. Lehébel, and P. M. Saffin, Black holes in self-tuning cubic Horndeski cosmology, Phys. Rev. D 101, 084008 (2020).
- K. E. Brenan, S. L. Campbell, and L. R. Petzold, Numerical Solution of Initial-Value Problems in Differential-Algebraic Equations, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (1995).
- E. Hairer, M. Roche, and C. Lubich, The Numerical Solution of Differential-Algebraic Systems by Runge-Kutta Methods, Lecture Notes in Mathematics (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 1989), vol. 1409.
- O. J. Tattersall and P. G. Ferreira, Quasinormal modes of black holes in Horndeski gravity, Phys. Rev. D 97, 104047 (2018).
- T. Kobayashi, H. Motohashi, and T. Suyama, Black hole perturbation in the most general scalar-tensor theory with second-order field equations II: The even-parity sector, Phys. Rev. D 89, 084042 (2014).
- T. Regge and J. A. Wheeler, Stability of a Schwarzschild singularity, Phys. Rev. 108, 1063 (1957).
- M. Maggiore, Gravitational Waves. Vol. 2: Astrophysics and Cosmology (Oxford University Press, New York, 2018).
- E. Babichev, C. Charmousis, G. Esposito-Farèse, and A. Lehébel, Hamiltonian unboundedness vs stability with an application to Horndeski theory, Phys. Rev. D 98, 104050 (2018).
- I. Sawicki, G. Trenkler, and A. Vikman, Causality and stability from acoustic geometry, J. High Energy Phys. 10 (2025) 227.
- R. M. Wald, Note on the stability of the Schwarzschild metric, J. Math. Phys. (N.Y.) 20, 1056 (1979).
- A. De Felice, S. Mukohyama, and K. Takahashi, Avoidance of strong coupling in general relativity solutions with a timelike scalar profile in a class of ghost-free scalar-tensor theories, Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 031103 (2022).
- H. Motohashi and S. Mukohyama, Weakly-coupled stealth solution in scordatura degenerate theory, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 01 (2020) 030.
- A. De Felice, S. Mukohyama, and K. Takahashi, Approximately stealth black hole in higher-order scalar-tensor theories, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 03 (2023) 050.
- R. A. Rosen, Non-singular black holes in massive gravity: Time-dependent solutions, J. High Energy Phys. 10 (2017) 206.
- T. Kobayashi, H. Tashiro, and D. Suzuki, Evolution of linear cosmological perturbations and its observational implications in Galileon-type modified gravity, Phys. Rev. D 81, 063513 (2010).
- A. De Felice and S. Tsujikawa, Conditions for the cosmological viability of the most general scalar-tensor theories and their applications to extended Galileon dark energy models, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 02 (2012) 007.
- G. Franciolini, L. Hui, R. Penco, L. Santoni, and E. Trincherini, Effective Field Theory of black hole quasinormal modes in scalar-tensor theories, J. High Energy Phys. 02 (2019) 127.
- J. Noller, L. Santoni, E. Trincherini, and L. G. Trombetta, Black hole ringdown as a probe for dark energy, Phys. Rev. D 101, 084049 (2020).
- L. Hui, A. Podo, L. Santoni, and E. Trincherini, Effective Field Theory for the perturbations of a slowly rotating black hole, J. High Energy Phys. 12 (2021) 183.
- S. Mukohyama and V. Yingcharoenrat, Effective Field Theory of black hole perturbations with timelike scalar profile: Formulation, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 09 (2022) 010.
- J. Khoury, T. Noumi, M. Trodden, and S. S. C. Wong, Stability of hairy black holes in shift-symmetric scalar-tensor theories via the Effective Field Theory approach, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 04 (2023) 035.
- S. Mukohyama, K. Takahashi, and V. Yingcharoenrat, Generalized Regge-Wheeler equation from Effective Field Theory of black hole perturbations with a timelike scalar profile, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 10 (2022) 050.
- S. Mukohyama, K. Takahashi, K. Tomikawa, and V. Yingcharoenrat, Quasinormal modes from EFT of black hole perturbations with timelike scalar profile, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 07 (2023) 050.
- S. Mukohyama, E. Seraille, K. Takahashi, and V. Yingcharoenrat, Bridging dark energy and black holes with EFT: Frame transformation and gravitational wave speed, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 01 (2025) 085.
- C. G. A. Barura, H. Kobayashi, S. Mukohyama, N. Oshita, K. Takahashi, and V. Yingcharoenrat, Tidal love numbers from EFT of black hole perturbations with timelike scalar profile, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 09 (2024) 001.
- S. Mukohyama, E. Seraille, K. Takahashi, and V. Yingcharoenrat, Effective field theory of perturbations on arbitrary black hole backgrounds with spacelike scalar profile, J. High Energy Phys. 10 (2025) 128.
- S. Mukohyama, K. Takahashi, K. Tomikawa, and V. Yingcharoenrat, Spherical black hole perturbations in EFT of scalar-tensor gravity with timelike scalar profile, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 05 (2025) 084.
- O. J. Tattersall, Quasi-normal modes of hairy scalar tensor black holes: Odd parity, Classical Quantum Gravity 37, 115007 (2020).
- S. Sirera and J. Noller, Testing the speed of gravity with black hole ringdowns, Phys. Rev. D 107, 124054 (2023).
- J. M. Martín-García, xAct. http://www.xact.es/.
- S. Sirera, ringdown-calculations. https://github.com/sergisl/ringdown-calculations.
- F. J. Zerilli, Gravitational field of a particle falling in a Schwarzschild geometry analyzed in tensor harmonics, Phys. Rev. D 2, 2141 (1970).
- M. Maggiore, 12 Black-hole perturbation theory, in Gravitational Waves: Volume 2: Astrophysics and Cosmology, edited by M. Maggiore (Oxford University Press, New York, 2018), p. 0.
- T. Kobayashi, H. Motohashi, and T. Suyama, Black hole perturbation in the most general scalar-tensor theory with second-order field equations I: The odd-parity sector, Phys. Rev. D 85, 084025 (2012).