Weak cosmic censorship: as strong as ever

Spacetime singularities that arise in gravitational collapse are always hidden inside of black holes. This is the essence of the weak cosmic censorship conjecture. The hypothesis, put forward by Penrose 40 years ago, is still one of the most important open questions in general relativity. In this Letter, we reanalyze extreme situations which have been considered as counterexamples to the weak cosmic censorship conjecture. In particular, we consider the absorption of scalar particles with large angular momentum by a black hole. Ignoring back reaction effects may lead one to conclude that the incident wave may overspin the black hole, thereby exposing its inner singularity to distant observers. However, we show that when back reaction effects are properly taken into account, the stability of the black-hole event horizon is irrefutable. We therefore conclude that cosmic censorship is actually respected in this type of gedanken experiments.     

Essay: Cosmic Censorship: The Role of Quantum Gravity

The cosmic censorship hypothesis introduced by Penrose thirty years ago is still one of the most important open questions in classical general relativity. In this essay we put forward the idea that cosmic censorhip is intrinsically a quantum gravity phenomena. To that end, we construct a gedanken experiment in which cosmic censorship is violated within the purely classical framework of general relativity. We prove, however, that quantum effects restore the validity of the conjecture. This suggests that classical general relativity is inconsistent and that cosmic censorship might be enforced only by a quantum theory of gravity.     

黑洞与奇点

黑洞可以说是引力最极端的体现,其视界内是个连光也逃不出去的时空区域。近来黑洞在天 文观测方面取得令人惊讶的发展,这其中包括：黑洞碰撞的引力波探测以及M87 星系的超大质量 黑洞的所谓第一张黑洞照片。但是在理论的层面上,黑洞物理尚有许多未解之谜。其中,信息遗失 的悖论是最有名的。但是,有另一个问题至少和信息的丢失一样{甚至更加{令人费解的,就是黑洞 内部的奇点性质。时空奇点是广义相对论本身无法描述的,在那里究竟发生什么事？黑洞内部的奇 点和宇宙大爆炸时的奇点有何不同？奇点是否会裸露在黑洞外面？所谓“宇宙监督猜想”的假设目 前有何进展？我们在这篇半科普的文章中简单的介绍这些课题,希望本文章对物理和数学的本科生 有所帮助。     

Destroying a Near-Extremal Kerr-Newman-AdS Black Hole with Test Particles

If radiative and self-force effects are neglected, we find that feeding a test particle into a near-extremal KerrNewman-Ad S black hole could lead to destroy their event horizon, giving rise to naked singularities. Hence radiative and self-force effects must be taken into account to further test cosmic censorship. Moreover, the allowed parameter range for this test particle is very narrow, this leaves the possibility of radiative and self-force effects considerations to cure the problem of WCC violation in Kerr-Newman-Ad S spacetime.     

Classical and quantum models of strong cosmic censorship

The cosmic censorship conjecture states that naked singularities should not evolve from regular initial conditions in general relativity. In its strong form the conjecture asserts that space-times with Cauchy horizons must always be unstable and thus that thegeneric solution of Einstein's equations must be inextendible beyond its maximal Cauchy development. In this paper we shall show that one can construct an infinite-dimensional family ofextendible cosmological solutions similar to Taub-NUT space-time. However, we shall also show that each of these solutions is unstable in precisely the way demanded by strong cosmic censorship. Finally we show that quantum fluctuations in the metric always provide (though in an unexpectedly subtle way) the “generic perturbations” which destroy the Cauchy horizons in these models.     

时空奇点和黑洞——2020年诺贝尔物理学奖解读

2020年度诺贝尔物理学奖于北京时间2020年10月6日晚揭晓,其中一半奖金授予罗杰·彭罗斯(Roger Penrose),表彰他"发现黑洞的形成是广义相对论的必然预言";另一半奖金授予莱因哈德·根泽尔(Reinhard Genzel)和安德里亚·格兹(Andrea Ghez),因为他们"在银河系中心发现了一个超大质量...     

Cosmic censorship,black holes,and particle orbits

Perhaps one of the main reasons for believing in the cosmic censorship hypothesis is the disquieting nature of the alternative: the existence of naked singularities, and hence loss of predictability, the possibility of closed timelike lines, and so forth. The consequences of assuming the cosmic censorship hypothesis can also be somewhat strange and unexpected. In particular, we apply Hawking's black hole area theorem to the study of particle orbits near a Schwarzschild black hole. If the cosmic censorship hypothesis (and hence the area theorem) is true, then there exist stable near-circular orbits arbitrarily close to the horizon atr=2M.This essay was awarded the third prize for 1978 by the Gravity Research Foundation. (Ed.)Work supported in part by the National Science Foundation contract PHY76-20029.     

Gravitational energy of a magnetized Schwarzschild black hole: a teleparallel approach

We investigate the distribution of gravitational energy in the spacetime of a Schwarzschild black hole immersed in a cosmic magnetic field. This is done in the context of the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity, which is an alternative geometrical formulation of general relativity, where gravity is described by a spacetime endowed with torsion rather than curvature, whose fundamental field variables are tetrad fields. We calculate the energy enclosed by a two-surface of constant radius—in particular, the energy enclosed by the event horizon of the black hole. In this case we find that the magnetic field has the effect of increasing the gravitational energy as compared to the vacuum Schwarzschild case. We also compute the energy (i) in the weak magnetic field limit, (ii) in the limit of vanishing magnetic field, and (iii) in the absence of the black hole. In all cases our results are consistent with what should be expected on physical grounds.     

Exact classical and quantum solutions for a covariant oscillator near the black hole horizon in Stueckelberg-Horwitz-Piron theory

We found exact solutions for canonical classical and quantum dynamics for general relativity in Horwitz general covariance theory. These solutions can be obtained by solving the generalized geodesic equation and Schrödinger-Stueckelberg-Horwitz-Piron (SHP) wave equation for a simple harmonic oscillator in the background of a two dimensional dilaton black hole spacetime metric. We proved the existence of an orthonormal basis of eigenfunctions for generalized wave equation. This basis functions form an orthogonal and normalized (orthonormal) basis for an appropriate Hilbert space. The energy spectrum has a mixed spectrum with one conserved momentum p according to a quantum number n. To find the ground state energy we used a variational method with appropriate boundary conditions. A set of mode decomposed wave functions and calculated for the Stueckelberg-Schrodinger equation on a general five dimensional blackhole spacetime in Hamilton gauge.     

Interior of a Schwarzschild Black Hole Revisited

The Schwarzschild solution has played a fundamental conceptual role in general relativity, and beyond, for instance, regarding event horizons, spacetime singularities and aspects of quantum field theory in curved spacetimes. However, one still encounters the existence of misconceptions and a certain ambiguity inherent in the Schwarzschild solution in the literature. By taking into account the point of view of an observer in the interior of the event horizon, one verifies that new conceptual difficulties arise. In this work, besides providing a very brief pedagogical review, we further analyze the interior Schwarzschild black hole solution. Firstly, by deducing the interior metric by considering time-dependent metric coefficients, the interior region is analyzed without the prejudices inherited from the exterior geometry. We also pay close attention to several respective cosmological interpretations, and briefly address some of the difficulties associated to spacetime singularities. Secondly, we deduce the conserved quantities of null and timelike geodesics, and discuss several particular cases in some detail. Thirdly, we examine the Eddington–Finkelstein and Kruskal coordinates directly from the interior solution. In concluding, it is important to emphasize that the interior structure of realistic black holes has not been satisfactorily determined, and is still open to considerable debate.     

The Global Structure of Spherically Symmetric Charged Scalar Field Spacetimes

We study the spherical collapse of self-gravitating charged scalar fields. The main result gives a complete characterization of the future boundary of spacetime, providing a starting point for studying the cosmic censorship conjectures. In general, the boundary includes two null components, one emanating from the center of symmetry and the other from the future limit point of null infinity, joined by an achronal component to which the area-radius function r extends continuously to zero. Various components of the boundary a priori may be empty and establishing such generic emptiness would suffice to prove formulations of weak or strong cosmic censorship. As a simple corollary of the boundary characterization, the present paper rules out scenarios of ‘naked singularity’ formation by means of ‘super-charging’ (near-)extremal Reissner-Nordström black holes. The main difficulty in delimiting the boundary is isolated in proving a suitable global extension principle that effectively excludes a broad class of singularity formation. This suggests a new notion of ‘strongly tame’ matter models, which we introduce in this paper. The boundary characterization proven here extends to any such ‘strongly tame’ Einstein-matter system.     

Gravitational collapse and naked singularities

Gravitational collapse is one of the most striking phenomena in gravitational physics. The cosmic censorship conjecture has provided strong motivation for research in this field. In the absence of a general proof for censorship, many examples have been proposed, in which naked singularity is the outcome of gravitational collapse. Recent developments have revealed that there are examples of naked singularity formation in the collapse of physically reasonable matter fields, although the stability of these examples is still uncertain. We propose the concept of ‘effective naked singularities’, which will be quite helpful because general relativity has limitation in its application at the high-energy end. The appearance of naked singularities is not detestable but can open a window for the new physics of strongly curved space-times.     

The ringing of quantum corrected Schwarzschild black hole with GUP

Schwarzschild black holes with quantum corrections are studied under scalar field perturbations and electromagnetic field perturbations to analyze the effect of the correction term on the potential function and quasinormal mode (QNM). In classical general relativity, spacetime is continuous and there is no existence of the so-called minimal length. The introduction of the correction items of the generalized uncertainty principle, the parameter β, can change the singularity structure of the black hole gauge and may lead to discretization in time and space. We apply the sixth-order WKB method to approximate the QNM of Schwarzschild black holes with quantum corrections and perform numerical analysis to derive the results of the method. Also, we find that the effective potential and QNM in scalar fields are larger than those in electromagnetic fields.     

Spherical Symmetric Gravitational Collapse in Chern-Simon Modified Gravity

This paper is devoted to investigate the gravitational collapse in the framework of Chern-Simon (CS) modified gravity. For this purpose, we assume the spherically symmetric metric as an interior region and the Schwarzchild spacetime is considered as an exterior region of the star. Junction conditions are used to match the interior and exterior spacetimes. In dynamical formulation of CS modified gravity, we take the scalar field Θ as a function of radial parameter r and obtain the solution of the field equations. There arise two cases where in one case the apparent horizon forms first and then singularity while in second case the order of the formation is reversed. It means the first case results a black hole which supports the cosmic censorship hypothesis (CCH). Obviously, the second case yields a naked singularity. Further, we use Junction conditions have to calculate the gravitational mass. In non-dynamical formulation, the canonical choice of scalar field Θ is taken and it is shown that the obtained results of CS modified gravity simply reduce to those of the general relativity (GR). It is worth mentioning here that the results of dynamical case will reduce to those of GR, available in literature, if the scalar field is taken to be constant.     

Gamma-Ray Bursts and Quantum Cosmic Censorship

Gamma-ray bursts are believed to result from the coalescence of binary neutron stars. However, the standard proposals for conversion of the gravitational energy to thermal energy have difficulties. We show that if the merger of the two neutron stars results in a naked singularity, instead of a black hole, the ensuing quantum particle creation can provide the requisite thermal energy in a straightforward way. The back-reaction of the created particles can avoid the formation of the naked singularity predicted by the classical theory. Hence cosmic censorship holds in the quantum theory, even if it were to be violated in classical general relativity.     

Weak cosmic censorship conjecture and thermodynamics in quintessence AdS black hole under charged particle absorption

Considering the cosmological constant as the pressure, this study addresses the laws of thermodynamics and weak cosmic censorship conjecture in the Reissner-Nordstr?m-AdS black hole surrounded by quintessence dark energy under charged particle absorption. The first law of thermodynamics is found to be valid as a particle is absorbed by the black hole. The second law, however, is violated for the extremal and near-extremal black holes, because the entropy of these black hole decrease. Moreover, we find that the extremal black hole does not change its configuration in the extended phase space, implying that the weak cosmic censorship conjecture is valid. Remarkably, the near-extremal black hole can be overcharged beyond the extremal condition under charged particle absorption. Hence, the cosmic censorship conjecture could be violated for the near-extremal black hole in the extended phase space. For comparison, we also discuss the first law, second law, and the weak cosmic censorship conjecture in normal phase space, and find that all of them are valid in this case.     

Quantum field theory in black hole-type spacetimes with horizons

Using quantum field theory in black hole-type spacetimes with horizons, which includes all the black hole solutions and also some other interesting solutions in general relativity, we obtain Hawking's thermal spectrum of Dirac particles near the event horizon as well as the cosmological horizon of the spacetime.     

Cosmic censorship and topology change in general relativity

It is shown that topology change in a spacetime induces naked singularities and hence violation of cosmic censorship. Also, chronology violation is shown to give rise to singularities.     

Weak cosmic censorship conjecture in BTZ black holes with scalar fields

The weak cosmic censorship conjecture in the near-extremal BTZ black hole has been tested using test particles and fields.It has been claimed that such a black hole can be overspun.In this paper,we review the thermodynamics and weak cosmic censorship conjecture in BTZ black holes using the scattering of a scalar field.The first law of thermodynamics in the non-extremal BTZ black hole is recovered.For the extremal and near-extremal black holes,due to the divergence of the variation of entropy,we test the weak cosmic censorship conjecture by evaluating the minimum of the function f,and find that both the extremal and near-extremal black holes cannot be overspun.