Extraction of energy from an extremal rotating electrovacuum black hole: Particle collisions along the axis of symmetry

Abstract

© 2019 American Physical Society. High-energy collisions can occur for radially moving charged test particles in the extremal Reissner-Nordström spacetime if one of the particles is fine-tuned and the collision point is taken close to the horizon. This is an analogy of the Bañados-Silk-West (BSW) effect, first described for extremal Kerr black holes. However, it differs significantly in terms of energy extraction: unlike for the original BSW process, no unconditional upper bounds on mass and energy of an escaping test particle produced in the collision were found for the charged version. We show that these results can be replicated for the motion of charged test particles along the axis of a general extremal rotating electrovacuum black hole, also including the Schnittman-type process with reflected fine-tuned particles. This brings the possibility of high-energy extraction closer to astrophysical black holes, which can be fast spinning and have a small "Wald charge" due to interaction with external magnetic fields. Nevertheless, we find numerous caveats that can make the energy extraction unfeasible despite the lack of unconditional kinematic bounds.