The dangers of extremes
arXiv:1005.2999 · doi:10.1007/s10714-010-1027-z
Abstract
While extreme black hole spacetimes with smooth horizons are known at the level of mathematics, we argue that the horizons of physical extreme black holes are effectively singular. Test particles encounter a singularity the moment they cross the horizon, and only objects with significant back-reaction can fall across a smooth (now non-extreme) horizon. As a result, classical interior solutions for extreme black holes are theoretical fictions that need not be reproduced by any quantum mechanical model. This observation suggests that significant quantum effects might be visible outside extreme or nearly extreme black holes. It also suggests that the microphysics of such black holes may be very different from that of their Schwarzschild cousins.
6 pages, 5 figures, 3rd place in 2010 Gravity Research Foundation Essay Competition
Cited by in corpus (32)
- Gravitational instability of an extreme Kerr black hole
- On the horizon instability of an extreme Reissner-Nordström black hole
- Non-extremal Black Hole Microstates: Fuzzballs of Fire or Fuzzballs of Fuzz ?
- What happens at the horizon(s) of an extreme black hole?
- A Lovelock black hole bestiary
- Outgoing gravitational shock-wave at the inner horizon: The late-time limit of black hole interiors
- A perturbative perspective on self-supporting wormholes
- Towards a Non-singular Paradigm of Black Hole Physics
- A note on instabilities of extremal black holes under scalar perturbations from afar
- Probing the Nature of Black Holes: Deep in the mHz Gravitational-Wave Sky
- The Persistence of the Large Volumes in Black Holes
- Metastable Supertubes and non-extremal Black Hole Microstates
- Constraint on the quadrupole moment of super-massive black hole candidates from the estimate of the mean radiative efficiency of AGN
- Spacetime Singularities and Cosmic Censorship Conjecture: A Review with Some Thoughts
- Extreme Hawking Radiation
- Kerr-AdS and its Near-horizon Geometry: Perturbations and the Kerr/CFT Correspondence
- The Cheshire Cap
- Evolution of the spin parameter of accreting compact objects with non-Kerr quadrupole moment
- Hair-brane Ideas on the Horizon
- Charged Particle Production Rate from Cosmic Censorship in Dilaton Black Hole Spacetimes
- Higher dimensional black holes
- Numerical study of the gravitational shock wave inside a spherical charged black hole
- Hot Attractors
- On Black Hole Thermodynamics, Singularity, and Gravitational Entropy
- A Maximum Force Perspective on Black Hole Thermodynamics, Quantum Pressure, and Near-Extremality
- Cosmic censorship in Lovelock theory
- How extreme are extreme black holes?
- Black Hole as a Wormhole Factory
- Fully extremal black holes: a black hole graveyard?
- The Special Role of Toroidal Black Holes in Holography
- How Not to Extract Information From Black Holes: Cosmic Censorship as a Guiding Principle
- A Nonlinear Endpoint of Charged Horizon Instabilities