Regular black holes: A short topic review

Abstract

The essential singularity in Einstein's gravity can be avoidable if the preconditions of Penrose's theorem can be bypassed, i.e., if the strong energy condition is broken in the vicinity of a black hole center. The singularity mentioned here includes two aspects: (i) the divergence of curvature invariants, and (ii) the incompleteness of geodesics. Both aspects are now taken into account in order to determine whether a black hole contains essential singularities. In this sense, black holes without essential singularities are dubbed regular (non-singular) black holes. The regular black holes have some intriguing phenomena that are different from those of singular black holes, and such phenomena have inspired numerous studies. In this review, we summarize the current topics that are associated with regular black holes.