The physics of the relativistic counter-streaming instability that drives mass inflation inside black holes

Abstract

If you fall into a real astronomical black hole (choosing a supermassive black hole, to make sure that the tidal forces don't get you first), then you will probably meet your fate not at a central singularity, but rather in the exponentially growing, relativistic counter-streaming instability at the inner horizon first pointed out by Poisson & Israel (1990), who called it mass inflation. The chief purpose of this paper is to present a clear exposition of the physical cause and consequence of inflation in spherical, charged black holes. Inflation acts like a particle accelerator in that it accelerates cold ingoing and outgoing streams through each other to prodigiously high energies. Inflation feeds on itself: the acceleration is powered by the gravity produced by the streaming energy. The paper: (1) uses physical arguments to develop simple approximations that follow the evolution of inflation from ignition, through inflation itself, to collapse; (2) confirms that the simple approximations capture accurately the results of fully nonlinear one- and two-fluid self-similar models; (3) demonstrates that, counter-intuitively, the smaller the accretion rate, the more rapidly inflation exponentiates; (4) shows that in single perfect-fluid models, inflation occurs only if the sound speed equals the speed of light, supporting the physical idea that inflation in single fluids is driven by relativistic counter-streaming of waves; (5) shows that what happens during inflation up to the Planck curvature depends not on the distant past or future, but rather on events happening only a few hundred black hole crossing times into the past or future; (6) shows that, if quantum gravity does not intervene, then the generic end result of inflation is not a general relativistic null singularity, but rather a spacelike singularity at zero radius.