Mass inflation in Brans-Dicke gravity

Abstract

A detailed nonlinear analysis of the internal structure of spherical, charged black holes that are accreting scalar matter is performed in the framework of the Brans-Dicke theory of gravity. We choose the lowest value of the Brans-Dicke parameter that is compatible with observational constraints. First, the homogeneous approximation is used. It indicates that mass inflation occurs and that the variations of the Brans-Dicke scalar inside the black hole, which could in principle be large in the absence of mass inflation, become small when mass inflation does occur. Then, a full nonlinear numerical study of the black hole interior perturbed by a self-gravitating massless uncharged scalar field is performed. We use an algorithm with adaptive mesh refinement capabilities. In this way, the changes in the internal structure of the black hole caused by mass inflation are determined, as well as the induced variations of the Brans-Dicke scalar, confirming, qualitatively, the indications given by the homogeneous approximation.