English

Symmetries of extremal horizons

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2025-12-12 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory Differential Geometry

Abstract

We prove an intrinsic analogue of Hawking's rigidity theorem for extremal horizons in arbitrary dimensions: any compact cross-section of a rotating extremal horizon in a spacetime satisfying the null energy condition must admit a Killing vector field. If the dominant energy condition is satisfied for null vectors, it follows that an extension of the near-horizon geometry admits an enhanced isometry group containing SO(2,1)SO(2,1) or the 2D Poincar\'e group R2SO(1,1)\mathbb{R}^2 \rtimes SO(1,1). In the latter case, the associated Aretakis instability for a massless scalar field is shifted by one order in the derivatives of the field transverse to the horizon. We consider a broad class of examples including Einstein-Maxwell(-Chern-Simons) theory and Yang-Mills theory coupled to charged matter. In these examples we show that the symmetries are inherited by the matter fields.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.10200,
  title  = {Symmetries of extremal horizons},
  author = {Alex Colling},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.10200},
  year   = {2025}
}

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29 pages