Might black holes reveal their inner secrets?
arXiv:1006.1763
Abstract
Black holes harbor a spacetime singularity of infinite curvature, where classical spacetime physics breaks down, and current theory cannot predict what will happen. However, the singularity is invisible from the outside because strong gravity traps all signals, even light, behind an event horizon. In this essay we discuss whether it might be possible to destroy the horizon, if a body is tossed into the black hole so as to make it spin faster and/or have more charge than a certain limit. It turns out that one could expose a "naked" singularity if effects of the body's own gravity can be neglected. We suspect however that such neglect is unjustified.
arXiv commentEssay written for FQXi essay competition "What is Ultimately Possible in Physics", Third Prize Winner (based on Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 141101 (2009), arXiv:0907.4146 [gr-qc])
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