It was recently found that, in certain flavors of scalar-Gauss-Bonnet gravity, linearly stable bald black holes can coexist with stable scalarized solutions. The transition between both can be ignited by a large nonlinear perturbation, thus the process was dubbed nonlinear scalarization, and it happens with a jump that leads to interesting astrophysical implications. Generalizing these results to the case of nonzero scalar field potential is important because a massive self-interacting scalar field can have interesting theoretical and observational consequences, e.g., reconcile scalar-Gauss-Bonnet gravity with binary pulsar observation, stabilize black hole solutions, etc. That is why, in the present paper, we address this open problem. We pay special attention to the influence of a scalar field mass and self-interaction on the existence of scalarized phases and the presence of a jump between stable bald and hairy black holes. Our results show that both the addition of a mass and positive self-interaction of the scalar field result in suppression or quenching of the overall scalarization phenomena. A negative scalar field self-interaction results in an increase of the scalarization. The presence and the size of the jump, though, are not so sensitive to the scalar field potential.

• Received 17 October 2023
• Accepted 28 November 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.108.124068