Constraints on regular black holes with nonminimally coupled electromagnetic fields

Abstract: Construction of physically realistic theories admitting regular black hole solutions remains an important open problem in gravitational physics. While theories with electromagnetic fields minimally coupled to gravity have been extensively studied over the past two decades, theories with nonminimal couplings remain comparatively unexplored. We investigate theories containing the interaction terms $R F_{ab}F^{ab}$, $R_{ab} F^a_{\ \, c} \, F^{bc}$ and $R_{abcd} F^{ab} F^{cd}$, which generically arise in low-energy effective Lagrangians. We prove that magnetically charged regular black holes are excluded, except possibly for finely tuned choices of coupling constants, and argue that a similar conclusion applies to electrically charged regular black holes. We further show that similar conclusions hold for Lagrangian terms of the form $f(R,F_{ab}{\star F}^{ab})$.