Building the blocks of Schwarzschild

A bstract We demonstrate that the Schwarzschild black hole can be “resolved” into bound states of Reissner-Nordström black holes in four dimensions. These bound states closely resemble the Schwarzschild geometry from the asymptotic region up to an infinitesimal distance away from the Schwarzschild horizon. Below this scale, the horizon is replaced by novel spacetime structures supported by intense and entrapped electromagnetic flux. The flux originates from collinear black holes that can be brought arbitrarily close to extremality. We find that the charge distribution follows a universal pattern, with magnitudes scaling proportionally to the total mass and alternating in sign. Moreover, the bound states always have an entropy that constitutes a fraction of the Schwarzschild entropy. Constructed in four dimensions, the black holes are kept apart by struts, for which we analyze tensions and energies. These solutions pave the way for analogous constructions in supergravity and for a brane/anti-brane description of the Schwarzschild black hole in string theory.