Kerr–Newman black holes cannot be over-charged or over-spun

Abstract

I describe research done in collaboration with J. Sorce showing that one cannot over-charge and/or over-spin an initially slightly nonextremal Kerr–Newman black hole via the type of gedanken experiments proposed by Hubeny and others, assuming that the nonelectromagnetic stress-energy tensor of the matter entering the black hole satisfies the null energy condition. Analysis of such gedanken experiments requires that we calculate all effects on the final mass of the black hole that are second-order in the charge and the angular momentum carried into the black hole. We do so using Lagrangian methods, and our formula for the second-order correction to mass, [Formula: see text], is obtained by generalizing the canonical energy analysis of Hollands and Wald to the Einstein–Maxwell case. Our formula for [Formula: see text] automatically includes all self-force and finite size effects.