Cosmic censorship in Lovelock theory

TL;DR

This paper investigates cosmic censorship in Lovelock gravity, showing that instabilities prevent naked singularities and supporting the hypothesis that cosmic censorship holds in these theories.

Contribution

It demonstrates that instabilities in Lovelock black holes prevent naked singularities, providing evidence for cosmic censorship in higher curvature gravity theories.

Findings

Instabilities drive systems away from naked singularities.

Cosmic censorship likely holds in Lovelock theories.

Black hole evaporation suggests a new decay phase.

Abstract

In analyzing maximally symmetric Lovelock black holes with non-planar horizon topologies, many novel features have been observed. The existence of finite radius singularities, a mass gap in the black hole spectrum and solutions displaying multiple horizons are noteworthy examples. Naively, in all these cases, the appearance of naked singularities seems unavoidable, leading to the question of whether these theories are consistent gravity theories. We address this question and show that whenever the cosmic censorship conjecture is threaten, an instability generically shows up driving the system to a new configuration with presumably no naked singularities. Also, the same kind of instability shows up in the process of spherical black holes evaporation in these theories, suggesting a new phase for their decay. We find circumstantial evidence indicating that, contrary to many claims in the literature, the cosmic censorship hypothesis holds in Lovelock theory.