Stability of the extremal Reissner-Nordström black hole to charged scalar perturbations

The stability of Reissner-Nordström black holes to neutral (gravitational and electromagnetic) perturbations was established almost four decades ago. However, the stability of these charged black holes under charged perturbations has remained an open question due to the well-known phenomena of superradiant scattering: A charged scalar field impinging on a charged Reissner-Nordström black hole can be amplified as it scatters off the hole. If the incident field has a non-zero rest mass, then the mass term effectively works as a mirror, preventing the energy extracted from the hole from escaping to infinity. One may suspect that such superradiant amplification of charged fields in Reissner-Nordström spacetimes may lead to an instability of these charged black holes (in as much the same way that rotating Kerr black holes are unstable under rotating scalar perturbations). However, we show here that, for extremal Reissner-Nordström black holes, the two conditions which are required in order to trigger a possible superradiant instability [namely: (1) the existence of a trapping potential well outside the black hole, and (2) superradiant amplification of the trapped modes] cannot be satisfied simultaneously. Our results thus support the stability of extremal Reissner-Nordström black holes to charged scalar perturbations.