Instabilities of Magnetically Charged Black Holes

The stability of the magnetically charged Reissner-Nordstrom black hole solution is investigated in the context of a theory with massive charged vector mesons. By exploiting the spherical symmetry of the problem, the linear perturbations about the Reissner-Nordstrom solution can be decomposed into modes of definite angular momentum $J$. For each value of $J$, unstable modes appear if the horizon radius is less than a critical value that depends on the vector meson gyromagnetic ratio $g$ and the monopole magnetic charge $q/e$. It is shown that such a critical radius exists (except in the anomalous case $q={1\over 2}$ with $0 \le g \le 2$), provided only that the vector meson mass is not too close to the Planck mass. The value of the critical radius is determined numerically for a number of values of $J$. The instabilities found here imply the existence of stable solutions with nonzero vector fields (``hair'') outside the horizon; unless $q=1$ and $g>0$, these will not be spherically symmetric.