Charged black holes in Weyl conformal gravity

Abstract We present a parametric study of the spacetime structures obtainable in Weyl conformal gravity’s dyonic Reissner-Nordström solution. We derive expressions for photon sphere radii and horizons for this metric in terms of the conformal gravity parameters, from which we then determine analytic formulae for extremal limits and Hawking temperatures. Due to the surprising lack of the inverse quadratic <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>/</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:msup> <mml:mi>r</mml:mi> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msup> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> term in this fourth-order metric, there is no guarantee for the innermost horizon of a black hole spacetime to be a Cauchy horizon, which is in direct contrast to the corresponding metric in general relativity. For example, for certain parameter values, a ‘nested black hole’ is seen to exist; in such a spacetime, we find a Cauchy horizon trapped between two event horizons, which is not a structure known to be obtainable in standard general relativity. In addition to such exotic spacetimes, we also find a critical value for the electric and magnetic charges, at which the stable and unstable photon spheres of the metric merge, and we obtain extremal limits where three horizons collide.