Charged black hole - Definition and Overview

A charged black hole is a black hole that possesses electric charge. Since the electromagnetic repulsion in compressing an electrically charged mass is dramatically greater than the gravitational attraction (by about 40 orders of magnitude), it is not expected that black holes with a significant electric charge will be formed in nature.

A charged black hole is one of three possible types of black holes that could exist in the theory of gravitation called General Relativity. Black holes can be characterized by three (and only three) quantities, its

• mass M, (called a Schwarzschild black hole if it has no angular momentum and no electric charge)
• angular momentum J (called a Kerr black hole if it has no charge)
• electric charge Q (charged black hole or Reissner-Nordstrøm black hole if the angular momentum is zero or a Kerr-Newman black hole if it has both angular momentum and electric charge).

A special, mathematically-oriented article describes the Reissner-Nordstrøm metric for a charged, non-rotating black hole.

The solutions of the Einstein's field equation for the gravitational field of an electrically charged point mass (with zero angular momentum) in empty space was obtained in 1918 by Hans Reissner and Gunnar Nordstrøm, not long after Karl Schwarzschild found the Schwarzschild metric as a solution for a point mass without electric charge and angular momentum.

See also

• black hole (a general review)

Black holes by type

• Schwarzschild black hole or static black hole
• rotating black hole, Newman black hole and Kerr-Newman black hole
• Reissner-Nordstrøm metric in a charged black hole

A classification by mass

• micro black hole and extra-dimensional black hole
• primordial black hole, a hypothetical leftover of the Big Bang
• stellar black hole, which could either be a static black hole or a rotating black hole
• supermassive black hole, which could also either be a static black hole or a rotating black hole