A no-hair theorem for spherically symmetric black holes in $$R^2$$ gravity

In a recent paper Cañate (Class Quantum Grav 35:025018, 2018) proved a no hair theorem to static and spherically symmetric or stationary axisymmetric black holes in general f(R) gravity. The theorem applies for isolated asymptotically flat or asymptotically de Sitter black holes and also in the case when vacuum is replaced by a minimally coupled source having a traceless energy momentum tensor. This theorem excludes the case of pure quadratic gravity, \(f(R) = R^2\). In this paper we use the scalar tensor representation of general f(R) theory to show that there are no hairy black hole in pure \(R^2\) gravity. The result is limited to spherically symmetric black holes but does not assume asymptotic flatness or de-Sitter asymptotics as in most of the no-hair theorems encountered in the literature. We include an example of a static and spherically symmetric black hole in \(R^2\) gravity with a conformally coupled scalar field having a Higgs-type quartic potential.