Point Charge in the Vicinity of a Schwarzschild Black Hole

Abstract

The electrostatic field of a point charge at rest in Schwarzschild space is derived. The solution is used to study the problem of a point charge slowly lowered into a nonrotating black hole. We find that the electric field of the charge remains well behaved as the charge is lowered and that all the multipole moments except the monopole fade away. We conclude that a Reissner‐Nordstrom black hole is produced.