Exact black holes and black branes with bumpy horizons supported by superfluid pions

We present exact solutions of the Einstein– <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <a:mi>S</a:mi> <a:mi>U</a:mi> <a:mo stretchy="false">(</a:mo> <a:mn>2</a:mn> <a:mo stretchy="false">)</a:mo> </a:math> nonlinear sigma model in <e:math xmlns:e="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <e:mn>3</e:mn> <e:mo>+</e:mo> <e:mn>1</e:mn> </e:math> spacetime dimensions, describing bumpy black holes and black branes. Using an Ansatz for superfluid pion multivortices, the matter sector reduces to a first-order Bogomol’nyi–Prasad–Sommerfield system, while the Einstein equations reduce to a Liouville equation with a smooth source governing the horizon deformation. These solutions describe horizons of different constant curvatures, with nontrivial bumpy geometries protected by an integer topological invariant, namely the vorticity, which also controls the number of bumps and the black hole thermodynamics. Remarkably, such horizons arise in a minimal and physically motivated matter model, without invoking exotic fields or modified gravity. The physical implications of these results in holography and astrophysics are briefly described.