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An event horizon appears in the Schwarzschild metric when considering a positive point mass in General Relativity.

But for a negative point mass in the negative mass Schwarzschild metric, which repulses test particles, no matter how big the negative mass is, no repulsive event horizon forms.

Intuitively, a big negative point mass should also create a repulsive event horizon, i.e., a region of spacetime that cannot be traversed from outside, due to respulsive gravity. If I make the negative mass big enough, I should create a region in which masses are so much gravitationally repelled, that they cannot enter (a repulsive event horizon).

Why can't a repulsive event horizon form in General Relavity with negative mass? Is there any other metric which contains a repulsive event horizon with negative mass?

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Manuel asked: "Is there any other metric which contains a repulsive event horizon with negative mass?"

There is the Reissner Nordström repulsion where the charge has a repulsive gravitational effect, but the mass is positive and the sign of the charge doesn't matter. You still can't leave the black hole though after you fell in, but you also can't reach the singularity, unless you are a photon. It has the same effect as negative mass though inside of the critical radius, here we're talking about the effective mass:

Andrew Hamilton (GR, Black Holes & Cosmology 2017, p. 188) wrote: "Inside this radius the interior mass is negative, and the velocity is imaginary. The singularity is timelike, and infinitely gravitationally repulsive, unlike the central singularity of the Schwarzschild geometry."

The cosmic event horizon is also repulsive, but not due to negative mass, although dark energy has negative pressure, but positive density. Since pressure $\rm p$ acts $3\times$ stronger than density $\rho$ and for dark energy $\rm p=-\rho$ its net effect is $2\times$ as repulsive as the attraction you'd expect from its density alone. Therefore the expansion of the universe became accelerated roughly $6$ billion years ago when the dark energy density was half the matter density, but both positive.

Manuel wrote: "Intuitively, a big negative point mass should also create a repulsive event horizon, i.e., a region of spacetime that cannot be traversed from outside, due to respulsive gravity."

The Schwarzschild horizon with positive mass is due to $g_{\rm tt}=g^{\rm rr}=0$. With negative mass this terms can get large, but never zero. So the kinetic energy required to get farther in gets higher, but you still can reach the center with the speed of light, or come arbitrary close to it if your kinetic energy is arbitrary high. That is the case for negative mass singularities as well as for the Reissner Nordström repulsion.

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  • $\begingroup$ related: archive.ph/eEtum#course.negspace which is for Kerr though, but if you set a=0 you recover Schwarzschild. $\endgroup$
    – Yukterez
    Commented Nov 26, 2023 at 16:19
  • $\begingroup$ I understand mathematically that no horizon can be formed in the Schwarzschild solution with negative mass. But it dont understant it physically. I have a negative gravitationally repulsive point mass, which repels other masses. Intuitively, if I make it big enough, I should create a region in which masses are so much gravitationally repelled, that they cannot enter (a repulsive event horizon). $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 27, 2023 at 0:01
  • $\begingroup$ @Manuel - this is best visualized in Gullstrand Painlevé style coordinates, also known as the river model, where the space flows with inward velocity for black holes and outward velocity for white holes while the acceleration is inward for both black and white, while for negative mass the space flow velocity is imaginary and the acceleration outwards, therefore there is no barrier where the space flows with the speed of light. The horizon comes from the speed, not the acceleration (the speed of the space flow is relative though, except where it is c, that is invariant and defines the horizon). $\endgroup$
    – Yukterez
    Commented Nov 27, 2023 at 16:12

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