Constraints on high-order gravitational theories from weak cosmic censorship

Abstract

Weak cosmic censorship conjecture (WCCC) is a basic principle that guarantees the predictability of spacetime and should be valid in any classical theories. One critical scientific question is whether the WCCC can serve as a constraint to the gravitational theories. To explore this question, we perform the first-order Sorce-Wald's gedanken experiments to test the WCCC in the higher-order gravitational theories and find that there exists a destruction condition $S_\text{ext}'(r_h)<0$ for the extremal black holes. To show the power of this condition, we evaluate the constraints given by WCCC in the quadratic and cubic gravitational theories. Our investigation makes an essential step toward applying WCCC to constrain the modified gravitational theories, and opens a new avenue to judge which theory is reasonable.