Related papers: Black Rings
Black holes have the peculiar and intriguing property of having an event horizon, a one-way membrane causally separating their internal region from the rest of the Universe. Today astrophysical observations provide some evidence for the…
We present balanced black ring solutions of pure Einstein-Maxwell theory in five dimensions. The solutions are asymptotically flat, and their tension and gravitational self-attraction are balanced by the repulsion due to rotation and…
These are the lecture notes for an introductory course on black holes and some aspects of their interaction with the classical and quantum world. The focus is on phenomena of "fundamental physics" in the immediate surroundings of the black…
What does a black hole look like? In 1+3 spacetime dimensions, the optical appearance of a black hole is a bidimensional region in the observer's sky often called the black hole shadow, as supported by the EHT observations. In higher…
The geometry of black hole spacetimes can be probed with exquisite precision in the gravitational-wave window, and possibly also in the optical regime. We study the accretion of bright spots -- objects which emit strongly in the optical or…
The string equations of motion and constraints are solved near the horizon and near the singularity of a Schwarzschild black hole. In a conformal gauge such that $\tau = 0$ ($\tau$ = worldsheet time coordinate) corresponds to the horizon…
Black hole uniqueness is known to fail in higher dimensions, and the multiplicity of black hole phases leads to phase transitions physics in General Relativity. The black-hole black-string transition is a prime realization of such a system…
This talk gives a brief introduction to black hole horizons and their role in black hole thermodynamics. In particular a distinction is made between quasi-locally defined horizons and event horizons. Currently some new techniques have led…
The galactic black hole is a supermassive black hole located at the center of a galaxy surrounded by a dark matter halo. For the first time, we establish a generic, fully-relativistic formalism to calculate solutions of Einstein's gravity…
Recently it was shown by Castro, Maloney and Strominger (CMS) that 4D Kerr black holes have a "hidden" conformal symmetry. Using some old results of Cvetic and Larsen, I show that this result is very likely to hold also for the most general…
The Einstein-Hilbert action with a cosmological term is used to derive a new action in 1+1 spacetime dimensions. It is shown that the two-dimensional theory is equivalent to planar symmetry in General Relativity. The two-dimensional theory…
Black hole images obtained by very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) by the Event Horizon Telescope are a new tool for testing general relativity in super-strong gravitational fields. These images demonstrated a ring-like structure which…
The theory of quadratic forms and class numbers has connections to many classical problems in number theory. Recently, class numbers have appeared in the study of black holes in string theory. We describe this connection and raise questions…
We investigate how a static and neutral distribution of external matter distorts a 5-dimensional static black ring. We obtain a general expression for the distorted metric in terms of the background metric functions and the distortion…
From a purely geometric (kinematic) perspective, black holes in four dimensional spacetimes can have event horizons with arbitrary topologies. It is only when energy conditions are imposed that the horizon's topology is constrained to be…
A surprising new seven-parameter supersymmetric black ring solution of five-dimensional supergravity has recently been discovered. In this paper, M-theory is used to give an exact microscopic accounting of its entropy.
The dimensionless entropy, ${\cal S} \equiv S/k$, of the visible universe, taken as a sphere of radius 50 billion light years with the Earth at its "center", is discussed. An upper limit ($10^{112}$), and a lower limit ($10^{102}$), for…
This resource letter is designed to guide students, educators, and researchers through (some of) the literature on black holes. Both the physics and astrophysics of black holes are discussed. Breadth has been emphasized over depth, and…
Black and white holes play remarkably contrasting roles in general relativity versus observational astrophysics. While there is overwhelming observational evidence for the existence of compact objects that are "cold, dark, and heavy", which…
This is a set of introductory lecture notes on black holes in string theory. After reviewing some aspects of string theory such as dualities, brane solutions, supersymmetric and non-extremal intersection rules, we analyze in detail extremal…