Electroweak/Standard Model surprises in GR-coupled hairy black holes

Identify additional unexpected black hole solutions or properties emerging from the Standard Model fields coupled to General Relativity, including non-Abelian hair and planetary-scale configurations, and classify their astrophysical relevance.

Background

Coupling GR to the Standard Model permits non-Abelian hairy black holes, and recent work suggests the existence of planetary-sized configurations in the electroweak sector. These possibilities challenge the no-hair paradigm and suggest novel astrophysical signatures.

Systematic exploration may uncover further surprises, motivating this open question.

References

Open questions: What further surprises are lurking in the Standard Model coupled to GR, waiting to be unveiled?

— Black Holes Inside and Out 2024: visions for the future of black hole physics  (2410.14414 - Afshordi et al., 2024) in Enrico Barausse, Section "GR with known/unkown fields"

Whether more economical dressings or larger nonabelian cores can produce families in the black-hole charge regime is an interesting open question.

— Fortuitous BMN Cohomology at Every $N$  (2610.21592 - Koch et al., 15 Oct 2026) in Section 3, Physical implications of the construction