Proof of linear instability of the Reissner-Nordström Cauchy horizon under scalar perturbations (Q516145)

The authors of this paper consider the homogeneous linear wave equation on a subextremal Reissner-Nordström spacetime \(\square_g\phi = 0\), where \(\square_g\) is the Laplace-Beltrami operator associated to the metric \(g\) of a subextremal Reissner-Nordström spacetime. The solutions of the above stated differential equation under sufficiently regular initial data decay with a polynomial rate w.r.t. some curve-linear coordinates \(u,v\) in the exterior region of the spacetime. It was shown by \textit{A. T. Franzen} [Commun. Math. Phys. 343, No. 2, 601--650 (2016; Zbl 1342.35386)] that the solution remains uniformly bounded in the spacetime, including in the region of the black hole and up to the Cauchy horizon. Here the authors discuss the main question: whether one may expect that, the derivative of the solution w.r.t. a regular vector field transversal to the Cauchy horizon is singular. For this purpose it is introduced the initial hypersurface \(\Sigma_0\) which is a complete 2-ended asymptotically flat Cauchy hypersurface for the maximal globally hyperbolic development of a subextremal Reissner-Nordström spacetime with nonvanishing charge. The main result here is the following statement: ``Generic smooth and compactly supported initial data to the above stated wave equation on \(\Sigma_0\) give rise to solutions that are not in the space \(W_{\text{loc}}^{1,2}\) (Sobolev space) in a neighborhood of any point on the future Cauchy horizon.'' As an interesting corollary it is shown that except for a possible codimension 1 set of initial data, and under spherically symmetry obtain solutions \(\phi \) to the considered wave equation such that, for every \(\epsilon > 0\), there exists a sequence \(v_n\to\infty \) depending on \(\epsilon \) and \(\phi \) such that on the event horizon \(v_n^{4+\epsilon }|\partial_t\phi (\infty ,v_n)|\to\infty \). The existence of blow up solutions is discussed as well.