The inequality has been proven for the outermost future apparent horizons outside the
outermost past apparent horizon in maximal data sets in spherically symmetric spacetimes [262]
(see also [408, 185, 186
]), for static black holes (using the Penrose mass, as we mentioned in
Section 7.2.5) [374, 375], and for the perturbed Reissner-Nordström spacetimes [225] (see
also [226]). Although the original specific potential counterexample has been shown not to violate the
Penrose inequality [157], the inequality has not been proven for a general data set. (For the
limitations of the proof of the Penrose inequality for the area of trapped surface and the Bondi
mass at past null infinity [258], see [64].) If the inequality were true, then this would be a
strengthened version of the positive mass theorem, providing a positive lower bound for the ADM
mass.
On the other hand, for time-symmetric data sets the Penrose inequality has been proven, even in the
presence of more than one black hole. The proof is based on the use of some quasi-local energy expression,
mostly of Geroch or of Hawking. First it is shown that these expressions are monotonic along the normal
vector field of a special foliation of the time-symmetric initial hypersurface (see Sections 6.1.3
and 6.2, and also [143]), and then the global existence of such a foliation between the apparent
horizon and the 2-sphere at infinity is proven. The first complete proof of the latter was given by
Huisken and Ilmanen [207, 208
]. (Recently Bray used a conformal technique to give an alternative
proof [87, 88, 89].)
A more general form of the conjecture, containing the electric charge of the black hole, was
formulated by Gibbons [156
]: The ADM mass is claimed not to be exceeded by
.
Although the weaker form of the inequality, the so-called Bogomolny inequality
, has been
proven (under assumptions on the matter content, see for example [160, 369, 257, 159, 274, 156]),
Gibbons’ inequality for the electric charge has been proven for special cases (for spherically symmetric
spacetimes see for example [186
]), and for time-symmetric initial data sets using Geroch’s inverse mean
curvature flow [218]. As a consequence of the results of [207, 208] the latter has become a complete proof.
However, this inequality does not seem to work in the presence of more than one black hole: For a
time-symmetric data set describing
nearly extremal Reissner-Nodström black holes,
can be greater than the ADM mass, where
is either the area
of the outermost marginally trapped surface [393], or the sum of the areas of the individual
black hole horizons [124]. On the other hand, the weaker inequality derived from the cosmic
censorship assumption, does not seem to be violated even in the presence of more than one black
hole22.
If in the final state of gravitational collapse the black hole has not only electric charge but angular
momentum as well, then the geometry is described by the Kerr-Newman solution. Expressing the mass
parameter
of the solution (which is just
times the ADM mass) in terms of the irreducible mass
of the horizon, the electric charge
and the angular momentum
, we arrive at
the more general form
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