https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-025-06620-6
Regular Article
Nonlinear dynamics of the inner horizon in Reissner-Nordström black holes: insights into mass inflation
Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, 781 039, Guwahati, India
Received:
1
March
2025
Accepted:
4
July
2025
Published online:
21
July
2025
The well-known instability of the inner horizon of a Reissner-Nordström black hole, first suggested by Simpson and Penrose, although studied extensively, has remained illusive so far as several studies led to varied conclusions about the dynamical nature of the inner horizon. In this work, we, therefore, focus upon the dynamic nature of the inner horizon in the course of mass inflation. We model this phenomenon with a massive chargeless scalar field minimally coupled with the Reissner-Nordström spacetime. Employing the Einstein-Maxwell field equation coupled with the Klein-Gordon equation, we obtain a nonlinear dynamical equation for the inner horizon coupled with the dynamics of the mass function and the scalar field. In the S-wave approximation, we develop a perturbative solution about the dynamic inner horizon and obtain an analytical solution as a polynomial of twelfth degree. Our detailed analysis based on the coupled set of nonlinear dynamical equations shows that the inner horizon moves inward in the course of mass inflation—higher the mass of the scalar field, faster is the shrinking rate of the inner horizon and the rate of mass inflation.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
