The inner horizon in the nonextreme Reissner-Nordstrom spacetime diagram is a Cauchy horizon. Radiation from exterior perturbations can approach it at arbitrarily late advanced time and undergo unbounded blueshift. Here its positive blueshift scale is . The inner-horizon blueshift coordinate behaves as , so
Even a decaying power-law tail can therefore generate divergent local flux. With counterstreaming radiation, backreaction produces mass inflation and curvature growth, rather than the smooth inner horizon of the exact solution.
This supports the strong cosmic censorship conjecture: a generically perturbed maximal Cauchy development is expected to lose the smooth extension across its Cauchy horizon, restoring predictability in the appropriate regularity class. The exact smooth inner horizon is unstable, not a robust failure of deterministic evolution. Curvature divergence supports an obstruction to a metric extension; it does not by itself exclude every continuous metric extension. The regularity class is part of the conjecture, and the blueshift argument is evidence, not a general theorem proving it.
Use the subextremal four-dimensional Reissner-Nordstrom spacetime, with . Its static radial function is
Take the time-symmetric two-ended bridge through the outer bifurcation surface. Its initial data have and
on each end. The bridge is smooth: in proper radial distance , . Each asymptotically flat end is an infinite Riemannian distance away. Hence the spatial Riemannian manifold is complete and admits no proper same-dimensional smooth isometric extension as a connected spatial manifold.
Its maximal Cauchy development includes the two exteriors and the adjacent future and past regions between and . It ends at inner Cauchy horizons, not at a curvature singularity. Since the simple root at is removable in horizon-penetrating coordinates and all curvature invariants are finite there, the exact solution extends across these Cauchy horizons. The extension is no longer globally determined by the given initial data.
Figure 1.
The maximal Cauchy development of a complete Reissner-Nordstrom bridge ends at extendible inner Cauchy horizons
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The shaded region is the maximal Cauchy development; dashed upper and lower null edges are inner Cauchy horizons. The displayed neighboring diamonds illustrate smooth continuation, rather than the entire infinite extension.
The strong cosmic censorship conjecture concerns generic admissible initial data, in a specified extension regularity. Exact charged spherical data are exceptional. Perturbations can produce mass inflation at the inner Cauchy horizon, obstructing suitably regular extensions; the precise conjecture depends on the matter model and whether extensions are required to be , , or another regularity. Thus this exact extendible example does not refute a generic strong cosmic censorship conjecture.
For an Einstein-Maxwell example the gravitational triple must be accompanied by electromagnetic initial data. One may take zero magnetic field and the smooth radial electric flux through the bridge. The charges at the two ends have opposite signs when measured with outward normals. This is an example in the electrovacuum theory, not vacuum initial data.
The strong cosmic censorship conjecture asserts that the maximal Cauchy development of generic admissible initial data is inextendible in a specified regularity class. The matter model, topology on initial data, and extension regularity are part of the assertion. An exceptional exact solution with a smooth Cauchy horizon need not violate this generic claim.
The weak cosmic censorship conjecture predicts, under appropriate generic isolated initial-data and matter assumptions, that collapse singularities are hidden from distant observers by an event horizon. It motivates exterior predictability in the physical argument for the Penrose inequality. It is distinct from the strong cosmic censorship conjecture, which concerns inextendibility of the maximal Cauchy development.