Constraints on low-energy effective theories from weak cosmic censorship

Abstract: We examine the weak cosmic censorship conjecture (WCCC) for the extremal charged black hole in possible generalizations of Einstein-Maxwell theory due to the higher order corrections, up to fourth-derivative terms. Our derivation is based on Wald's gedanken experiment to destroy an extremal black hole. We find that, provided the null energy condition for the falling matter, the WCCC is preserved for all possible generalizations. Thus, the WCCC cannot serve as a constraint to the higher order effective theories. We also show that up to first order variations of black hole mass and charge, WCCC is preserved for non-rotating extremal black holes in all $n$-dimensional diffeomorphism-covariant theories of gravity and $U(1)$ gauge field.