Peter Zimmerman

Horizon instability of extremal Kerr black holes: Nonaxisymmetric modes and enhanced growth rate

We show that the horizon instability of the extremal Kerr black hole is associated with a singular branch point in the Green function at the superradiant bound frequency. We study generic initial data supported away from the horizon and find an enhanced growth rate due to nonaxisymmetric modes. The growth is controlled by the conformal weight

Self-force as a cosmic censor

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Transient Instability of Rapidly Rotating Black Holes

of each mode. We speculate on connections to near-extremal black holes and holographic duality.

Critical Exponents of Extremal Kerr Perturbations

We examine Hubeny’s scenario according to which a near-extremal Reissner-Nordstrom black hole can absorb a charged particle and be driven toward an over-extremal state in which the charge exceeds the mass, signaling the destruction of the black hole. Our analysis incorporates the particle’s electromagnetic self-force and the energy radiated to infinity in the form of electromagnetic waves. With these essential ingredients, our sampling of the parameter space reveals no instances of an overcharged final state, and we conjecture that the self-force acts as a cosmic censor, preventing the destruction of a near-extremal black hole by the absorption of a charged particle. We argue, on the basis of the third law of black hole mechanics, that this conclusion is robust and should apply to attempts to overspin a Kerr black hole.

Horizon instability of extremal Reissner-Nordström black holes to charged perturbations

NSF [PHY-1506027]; Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics; Government of Canada through Industry Canada; Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Economic Development Innovation

Gravitational self-force in nonvacuum spacetimes: An effective field theory derivation

We show that scalar, electromagnetic, and gravitational perturbations of extremal Kerr black holes are asymptotically self-similar under the near-horizon, late-time scaling symmetry of the background metric. This accounts for the Aretakis instability (growth of transverse derivatives) as a critical phenomenon associated with the emergent symmetry. We compute the critical exponent of each mode, which is equivalent to its decay rate. It follows from symmetry arguments that, despite the growth of transverse derivatives, all generally covariant scalar quantities decay to zero.

Gravitational self-force in nonvacuum spacetimes

We investigate the stability of highly charged Reissner-Nordström black holes to charged scalar perturbations. We show that the near-horizon region exhibits a transient instability which becomes the Aretakis instability in the extremal limit. The rates we obtain match the enhanced rates for nonaxisymmetric perturbations of the near-extremal and extremal Kerr solutions. The agreement is shown to arise from a shared near-horizon symmetry of the two scenarios.

Scaling and Universality in Extremal Black Hole Perturbations

In this paper we investigate the motion of small compact objects in non-vacuum spacetimes using methods from effective field theory in curved spacetime. Although a vacuum formulation is sufficient in many astrophysical contexts, there are applications such as the role of the self-force in enforcing cosmic-censorship in the context of the overcharging problem, which necessitate an extension into the non-vacuum regime. The defining feature of the self-force problem in non-vacuum spacetimes is the coupling between gravitational and non-gravitational field perturbations. The formulation of the self-force problem for non-vacuum spacetimes was recently provided in simultaneous papers by Zimmerman and Poisson [1] and Linz, Friedmann, Wiseman [2]. Here we distinguish ourselves by working with the effective action rather than the field equations. The formalism utilizes the multi-index notation developed by Zimmerman and Poisson [1] to accommodate the coupling between the different fields. Using dimensional regularization, we arrive at a finite expression for the local self-force expressed in terms of multi-index quantities evaluated in the background spacetime. We then apply the formalism to compute the coupled gravitational self-force in two explicit cases. First, we calculate the self-force on a massive particle possessing scalar charge and moving in an scalarvac spacetime. We then derive an expression for the self-force on an electrically charged, massive particle moving in an electrovac spacetime. In both cases, the force is expressed as a sum of local terms involving tensors defined in the background spacetime and evaluated at the current position of the particle, as well as tail integrals that depend on the past history of the particle.

Gravitational self-force in scalar-tensor gravity

The gravitational self-force has thus far been formulated in background spacetimes for which the metric is a solution to the Einstein field equations in vacuum. While this formulation is sufficient to describe the motion of a small object around a black hole, other applications require a more general formulation that allows for a nonvacuum background spacetime. We provide a foundation for such extensions, and carry out a concrete formulation of the gravitational self-force in two specific cases. In the first we consider a particle of mass

Perturbations of Extremal Kerr Spacetime: Analytic Framework and Late-time Tails

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