Overspinning naked singularities in AdS$_3$ spacetime

Abstract

The BTZ black hole belongs to a family of locally three-dimensional anti-de Sitter (AdS$_3$) spacetimes labeled by their mass $M$ and angular momentum $J$. The case $M \ell \geq |J|$, where $\ell$ is the anti-de Sitter radius, provides the black hole. Extending the metric to other values of of $M$ and $J$ leads to geometries with the same asymptotic behavior and global symmetries, but containing a naked singularity at the origin. The case $M \ell \leq -|J|$ corresponds to spinning conical singularities that are reasonably well understood. Here we examine the remaining case, that is $-|J|<M\ell<|J|$. These naked singularities are mathematically acceptable solutions describing classical spacetimes. They are obtained by identifications of the covering pseudosphere in $\mathbb{R}^{2,2}$ and are free of closed timelike curves. Here we study the causal structure and geodesics around these \textit{overspinning} geometries. We present a review of the geodesics for the entire BTZ family. The geodesic equations are completely integrated, and the solutions are expressed in terms of elementary functions. Special attention is given to the determination of circular geodesics, where new results are found. According to the radial bounds, eight types of noncircular geodesics appear in the BTZ spacetimes. For the case of overspinning naked singularity, null and spacelike geodesics can reach infinity passing by a point nearest to the singularity, others extend from the central singularity to infinity, and others still have a radial upper bound and terminate at the singularity. Timelike geodesics cannot reach infinity; they either loop around the singularity or fall into it. The spatial projections of the geodesics (orbits) exhibit self-intersections, whose number is determined for null and spacelike geodesics, and it is found a special class of timelike geodesics whose spatial projections are closed.