We discuss scenarios in which the galactic dark matter in spiral galaxies is described by a long range coherent field which settles in a stationary configuration that might account for the features of the galactic rotation curves. The simplest possibility is to consider scalar fields, so we discuss, in particular, two mechanisms that would account for the settlement of the scalar field in a nontrivial configuration in the absence of a direct coupling of the field with ordinary matter: topological defects and spontaneous scalarization.

A numerical analysis shows that the Einstein field equations allow static and spherically symmetric black hole solutions with scalar-field hair in asymptotically flat spacetimes. When regularity at the origin is imposed (i.e., in the absence of a horizon) globally regular scalar solitons are found. The asymptotically flat solutions are obtained provided that the scalar potential $V\left(\phi \right)$ of the theory is not positive semidefinite and such that its local minimum is also a zero of the potential, the scalar field settling asymptotically at that minimum. The configurations, although unstable under spherically symmetric linear perturbations, are regular and thus can serve as counterexamples to the no-scalar-hair conjecture.

We study in the physical frame the phenomenon of spontaneous scalarization that occurs in scalar-tensor theories of gravity for compact objects. We discuss the fact that the phenomenon occurs exactly in the regime where the Newtonian analysis indicates it should not. Finally, we discuss the way the phenomenon depends on the equation of state used to describe nuclear matter.

We critically discuss current research on black hole (BH) solutions in f ( R ) gravity and shed light on its geometrical and physical significance. We also investigate the meaning, existence or lack thereof of Birkhoff’s theorem (BT) in this kind of modified gravity. We then focus on the analysis and search for non-trivial (i.e. hairy) asymptotically flat (AF) BH solutions in static and spherically symmetric (SSS) spacetimes in vacuum having the property that the Ricci scalar does not vanish identically in the domain of outer communication. To do so, we provide and enforce regularity conditions at the horizon in order to prevent the presence of singular solutions there. Specifically, we consider several classes of f ( R ) models like those proposed recently for explaining the accelerated expansion in the Universe and which have been thoroughly tested in several physical scenarios. Finally, we report analytical and numerical evidence about the absence of geometric hair in AFSSSBH solutions in those f ( R ) models. First, we submit the models to the available no-hair theorems (NHTs), and in the cases where the theorems apply, the absence of hair is demonstrated analytically. In the cases where the theorems do not apply, we resort to a numerical analysis due to the complexity of the non-linear differential equations. With that aim, a code to solve the equations numerically was built and tested using well-known exact solutions. In a future investigation we plan to analyze the problem of hair in de Sitter and anti-de Sitter backgrounds.

We consider metric f(R) theories of gravity without mapping them to their scalar-tensor counterpart, but using the Ricci scalar itself as an ``extra'' degree of freedom. This approach avoids then the introduction of a scalar-field potential that might be ill defined (not single valued). In order to explicitly show the usefulness of this method, we focus on static and spherically symmetric spacetimes and deal with the recent controversy about the existence of extended relativistic objects in certain class of f(R) models.

We consider the Einstein-Maxwell system as a Cauchy initial value problem taking the electric and magnetic fields as independent variables. Maxwell’s equations in curved spacetimes are derived in detail using a $3+1$ formalism and their hyperbolic properties are analyzed, showing that the resulting system is symmetric hyperbolic. We also focus on the problem of finding initial data for multiple charged black holes assuming time-symmetric initial data and using a puncturelike method to solve the Hamiltonian and the Gauss constraints. We study the behavior of the resulting initial data families, and show that previous results in this direction can be obtained as particular cases of our approach.