Isolated horizons model equilibrium states of classical black holes. A detailed quantization, starting from a classical phase space restricted to spherically symmetric horizons, exists in the literature and has since been extended to axisymmetry. This paper extends the quantum theory to horizons of arbitrary shape. Surprisingly, the Hilbert space obtained by quantizing the full phase space of \textit{all} generic horizons with a fixed area is identical to that originally found in spherical symmetry. The entropy of a large horizon remains one quarter its area, with the Barbero-Immirzi parameter retaining its value from symmetric analyses. These results suggest a reinterpretation of the intrinsic quantum geometry of the horizon surface.
We consider space-times which in addition to admitting an isolated horizon also admit Killing horizons with or without an event horizon. We show that an isolated horizon is a Killing horizon provided either (1) it admits a stationary neighbourhood or (2) it admits a neighbourhood with two independent, commuting Killing vectors. A Killing horizon is always an isolated horizon. For the case when an event horizon is definable, all conceivable relative locations of isolated horizon and event horizons are possible. Corresponding conditions are given.
From the similarity between null infinity and horizons, we show how to set up proper frames near generic isolated horizons. The asymptotic expansion and reference spin frame are used to study gravitational radiation near generic isolated horizons and it turns out that the news function appears on non-expanding horizon. We also verify that the surface gravity is constant on (weakly) isolated horizon. The corresponding conserved quantities and relevant asymptotic symmetry groups which allow gravitational radiation of generic isolated horizons are obtained from asymptotic expansion.
In this paper, we extend the calculation of the entropy of the nonrotating isolated horizons in 4 dimensional spacetime to that in a higher dimensional spacetime. We show that the boundary degrees of freedom on an isolated horizon can be described effectively by a punctured $SO(1,1)$ BF theory. Then the entropy of the nonrotating isolated horizon can be calculated out by counting the microstates. It satisfies the Bekenstein-Hawking law.
Based on the first-order action for scalar-tensor theories with the Immirzi parameter, the symplectic form for the spacetimes admitting a weakly isolated horizon as internal boundary is derived by the covariant phase space approach. The first law of thermodynamics for the weakly isolated horizons with rotational symmetry is obtained. It turns out that the Immirzi parameter appears in the expression of the angular momentum of isolated horizon, and the scalar field contributes to the horizon entropy.
The tunneling effect near a weakly isolated horizon (WIH) has been studied. By applying the null geodesic method of Parikh and Wilczek and Hamilton-Jacibi method of Angheben et al. to a weakly isolated horizon, we recover the semiclassical emission rate in the tunneling process. We show that the tunneling effect exists in a wide class of spacetimes admitting weakly isolated horizons. The general thermodynamic nature of WIH is then confirmed.
The spectroscopy of a weakly isolated horizon (WIH) has been investigated. We obtain an equally spaced entropy spectrum with its quantum equal to the one given by Bekenstein [5]. We demonstrate that the quantization of entropy and area is a generic property of horizon, and the results exit in a wide class of spacetimes admitting weakly isolated horizons. Our results also indicate that the entropy quantum of the black hole horizon is closely related to Hawking temperature.
A set of boundary conditions defining a non-rotating isolated horizon are given in Einstein-Maxwell theory. A space-time representing a black hole which itself is in equilibrium but whose exterior contains radiation admits such a horizon . Physically motivated, (quasi-)local definitions of the mass and surface gravity of an isolated horizon are introduced. Although these definitions do not refer to infinity, the quantities assume their standard values in Reissner-Nordstrom solutions. Finally, using these definitions, the zeroth and first laws of black hole mechanics are established for isolate…
We derive all the axi-symmetric, vacuum and electrovac extremal isolated horizons. It turns out that for every horizon in this class, the induced metric tensor, the rotation 1-form potential and the pullback of the electromagnetic field necessarily coincide with those induced by the monopolar, extremal Kerr-Newman solution on the event horizon. We also discuss the general case of a symmetric, extremal isolated horizon. In particular, we analyze the case of a two-dimensional symmetry group generated by two null vector fields. Its relevance to the classification of all the symmetric isolated hor…
The Ashtekar and Ashtekar-Barbero connection variable formulations of Kerr isolated horizons are derived. Using a regular Kinnersley tetrad in horizon-penetrating Kruskal-Szekeres-like coordinates, the spin coefficients of Kerr geometry are determined by solving the first Maurer-Cartan equation of structure. Isolated horizon conditions are imposed on the tetrad and the spin coefficients. A transformation into an orthonormal tetrad frame that is fixed in the time gauge is applied and explicit calculations of the spin connection, the Ashtekar and Ashtekar-Barbero connections, and the correspondi…
A framework is developed in which one can write down the constraint equations on a three--dimensional hypersurface of arbitrary signature. It is then applied to isolated and dynamical horizons. The derived equations can be used to extract physicaly relevant quantities describing the horizon irrespective to whether it is isolated (null) or dynamical at a given instant of time. Furthermore, small perturbation of isolated horizons are considered, and finally a family of axially--symmetric exact solution of the constraint equations on a dynamical horizon is presented.
Geometrical structures intrinsic to non-expanding, weakly isolated and isolated horizons are analyzed and compared with structures which arise in other contexts within general relativity, e.g., at null infinity. In particular, we address in detail the issue of singling out the preferred normals to these horizons required in various applications. This work provides powerful tools to extract invariant, physical information from numerical simulations of the near horizon, strong field geometry. While it complements the previous analysis of laws governing the mechanics of weakly isolated horizons, …
A set of boundary conditions defining an undistorted, non-rotating isolated horizon are specified in general relativity. A space-time representing a black hole which is itself in equilibrium but whose exterior contains radiation admits such a horizon. However, the definition is applicable in a more general context, such as cosmological horizons. Physically motivated, (quasi-)local definitions of the mass and surface gravity of an isolated horizon are introduced and their properties analyzed. Although their definitions do not refer to infinity, these quantities assume their standard values in t…
Based on the idea of the work by Wilczek and his collaborators, we consider the gravitational anomaly near weekly isolated horizon. We find that there exists a universal choice of tortoise coordinate for any weakly isolated horizon. Under this coordinate, the leading behavior of a quite arbitrary scalar field near horizon is a 2-dimensional chiral scalar field. This means we can extend the idea of Wilczek and his collaborators to more general cases and show the relation between gravitational anomaly and Hawking radiation is a universal property of black hole horizon.
The comment arXiv:1204.2729v1 is completely wrong. The author makes serious mistakes in calculations and judgement. The errors are made at the level of basic undergraduate statistical mechanics.
Instead of using a three dimensional analysis on quasi-local horizons, we adopt a four dimensional asymptotic expansion analysis to study the next order contributions from the nonlinearity of general relativity. From the similarity between null infinity and horizons, the proper reference frames are chosen from the compatible constant spinors for an observer to measure the energy-momentum and flux near quasi-local horizons. In particular, we focus on the similarity of Bondi-Sachs gravitational radiation for the quasi-local horizons and compare our results to Ashtekar-Kirshnan flux formular. The…
The electrical laws and Carnot cycle of Isolated Horizon (IH) are investigated in this paper. We establish the Ohm's law and Joule's law of an Isolated Horizon, and find that the conceptual picture of black holes (Membrane Paradigm) can also apply to this kind of quasi-local black holes. We also investigate the geometrical properties near a non-rotating IH, and find that under the first-order approximation of r, there exist a Killing vector and a Hamiltonian conjugate to it, so this vector is a physical observer. We calculate the energy as measured at infinity of a particle at rest outside a n…
Black hole mechanics was recently extended by replacing the more commonly used event horizons in stationary space-times with isolated horizons in more general space-times (which may admit radiation arbitrarily close to black holes). However, so far the detailed analysis has been restricted to non-rotating black holes (although it incorporated arbitrary distortion, as well as electromagnetic, Yang-Mills and dilatonic charges). We now fill this gap by first introducing the notion of isolated horizon angular momentum and then extending the first law to the rotating case.
Isolated horizon conditions enforce the time invariance of both the intrinsic and the extrinsic geometry of a (quasilocal) black hole horizon. Nonexpanding horizons, only requiring the invariance of the intrinsic geometry, have been successfully employed in the (excision) initial data of black holes in instantaneous equilibrium. Here we propose the use of the full isolated horizon structure when solving the elliptic system resulting from the complete set of conformal 3+1 Einstein equations under a quasiequilibrium ansatz prescription. We argue that a set of geometric inner boundary conditions …
In this paper we investigate the properties of tunneling spectrum from weakly isolated horizon(WIH). We find that there are correlations among Hawking radiations from weakly isolated horizon, the information can be carried out in terms of correlations between sequential emissions, and the radiation is an entropy conservation process. We generalize Refs.[11-13]' results to a more general spacetime. Through revisiting the calculation of tunneling spectrum of weakly isolated horizon, we find that Ref.[12]'s requirement that radiating particles have the same angular momenta of unit mass as that of…
The near horizon geometry of general black holes in equilibrium can be conveniently characterized in the formalism of weakly isolated horizons in the form of the Bondi-like expansions (Krishnan B, Class.\ Quantum Grav.\ 29, 205006, 2012). While the intrinsic geometry of the Kerr-Newman black hole has been extensively investigated in the weakly isolated horizon framework, the off-horizon description in the Bondi-like system employed by Krishnan has not been studied. We extend Krishnan's work by explicit, non-perturbative construction of the Bondi-like tetrad in the full Kerr-Newman spacetime. N…
We extend the quasilocal (metric-based) Hamiltonian formulation of general relativity so that it may be used to study regions of spacetime with null boundaries. In particular we use this generalized Brown-York formalism to study the physics of isolated horizons. We show that the first law of isolated horizon mechanics follows directly from the first variation of the Hamiltonian. This variation is not restricted to the phase space of solutions to the equations of motion but is instead through the space of all (off-shell) spacetimes that contain isolated horizons. We find two-surface integrals e…
In this paper, the isolated horizons with rotation are considered. It is shown that the symplectic form is the same as that in the nonrotating case. As a result, the boundary degrees of freedom can be also described by an SO$(1,1)$ BF theory. The entropy satisfies the Bekenstein-Hawking area law with the same Barbero-Immirzi parameter.
The decade-old formulation of the isolated horizon classically and within loop quantum gravity, and the extraction of the microcanonical entropy of such a horizon from this formulation, is reviewed, in view of recent renewed interest. There are two main approaches to this problem: one employs an SU(2) Chern-Simons theory describing the isolated horizon degrees of freedom, while the other uses a reduced U(1) Chern-Simons theory obtained from the SU(2) theory, with appropriate constraints imposed on the spectrum of boundary states `living' on the horizon. It is shown that both these ways lead to…
We study the geometry and dynamics of both isolated and dynamical trapping horizons by considering the allowed variations of their foliating two-surfaces. This provides a common framework that may be used to consider both their possible evolutions and their deformations as well as derive the well-known flux laws. Using this framework, we unify much of what is already known about these objects as well as derive some new results. In particular we characterize and study the "almost-isolated" trapping horizons known as slowly evolving horizons. It is for these horizons that a dynamical first law h…
We construct the spacetime in the vicinity of a general isolated, rotating, charged black hole. The black hole is modeled as a weakly isolated horizon, and we use the characteristic initial value formulation of the Einstein equations with the horizon as an inner boundary. The spacetime metric and other geometric fields are expanded in a power series in a radial coordinate away from the horizon by solving the characteristic field equations in the Newman-Penrose formalism. This is the first in a series of papers which investigate the near horizon geometry and its physical applications using the …
In this paper, the BF theory method is applied to the nonrotating isolated horizons in Lovelock theory. The final entropy matches the Wald entropy formula for this theory. We also confirm the conclusion got by Bodendorfer et. al. that the entropy is related to the flux operator rather than the area operator in general diffeomorphic-invariant theory.
There are two mathematical relativity frameworks generalizing the black hole theory: the theory of isolated horizons (IH) and the theory of near horizon geometries (NHG). We outline here and discuss the derivation of the NHG from the theory of IH by composing spacetimes from IH. The simplest but still quite general class of solutions to Einstein's equations of this type defines spacetimes foliated by Killing horizons emanating from extremal horizons. That derivation, clearly being a link between the two frameworks, seems to be unknown to the NHG researchers and is hardly acknowledged in review…
A maximally rotating Kerr black hole is said to be extremal. In this paper we introduce the corresponding restrictions for isolated and dynamical horizons. These reduce to the standard notions for Kerr but in general do not require the horizon to be either stationary or rotationally symmetric. We consider physical implications and applications of these results. In particular we introduce a parameter e which characterizes how close a horizon is to extremality and should be calculable in numerical simulations.
The theory of isolated horizon provides a quasi-local framework to study the spacetime geometry in the neighbourhood of the horizon of a black hole in equilibrium without any reference to structures far away from the horizon. While the geometric properties of the Kerr-(A)dS and more general algebraically special solutions have drawn substantial interest recently in the isolated horizon formalism, their horizon metrics have never been written down explicitly in the adapted Bondi-like coordinate system. Following the approach by Krishnan and assuming that the horizon symmetry extends to certain …
In this paper, the entropy of isolated horizons in non-minimally coupling scalar field theory and in the scalar-tensor theory of gravitation is calculated by counting the degree of freedom of quantum states in loop quantum gravity. Instead of boundary Chern-Simons theory, the boundary BF theory is used. The advantages of the new approaches are that no spherical symmetry is needed, and that the final result matches exactly with the Wald entropy formula.
We present a coordinate-independent method for extracting mass (M) and angular momentum (J) of a black hole in numerical simulations. This method, based on the isolated horizon framework, is applicable both at late times when the black hole has reached equilibrium, and at early times when the black holes are widely separated. We show how J and M can be determined in numerical simulations in terms of only those quantities which are intrinsic to the apparent horizon. We also present a numerical method for finding the rotational symmetry vector field (required to calculate J) on the horizon.
The recently introduced Isolated Horizons (IH) formalism has become a powerful tool for realistic black hole physics. In particular, it generalizes the zeroth and first laws of black hole mechanics in terms of quasi-local quantities and serves as a starting point for quantum entropy calculations. In this note we consider theories which admit hair, and analyze some new results that the IH provides, when considering solitons and stationary solutions. Furthermore, the IH formalism allows to state uniqueness conjectures (i.e. horizon `no-hair conjectures') for the existence of solutions.
This letter presents a new, solely thermodynamical argument for considering the states of the quantum isolated horizon of a black hole as distinguishable. We claim that only if the states are distinguishable, the thermodynamic entropy is an extensive quantity and can be well-defined. To show this, we make a comparison with a classical ideal gas system whose statistical description makes only sense if an additional 1/N!-factor is included in the state counting in order to cure the Gibbs paradox. The case of the statistical description of a quantum isolated horizon is elaborated, to make the cla…
We point out that the symplectic structure, written in terms of the Sen-Ashtekar-Immirzi-Barbero variables, of a spacetime admitting an isolated horizon as the inner boundary, involves a positive constant parameter, say $σ$, if $γ\neq\pm i$, where $γ$ is the Barbero-Immirzi parameter. The parameter $σ$ represents the rescaling freedom that characterizes the equivalence class of null generators of the isolated horizon. We reiterate the fact that the laws of mechanics associated with the isolated horizon does not depend on the choice of $σ$ and, in particular, while one uses the value of standar…
It is shown that a Quantum Isolated Horizon(QIH), as observed by a local observer, is locally unstable as a thermodynamic system. The result is derived in two different ways. Firstly, the specific heat of the QIH is shown to be negative definite through a quantum statistical analysis. Then, it is shown, in the thermal holographic approach, that the canonical partition function of the QIH diverges under Gaussian thermal fluctuations of such energy spectrum, implying local instability of such a QIH as a thermodynamic system.
We study the mechanics of Hayward's trapping horizons, taking isolated horizons as equilibrium states. Zeroth and second laws of dynamic horizon mechanics come from the isolated and trapping horizon formalisms respectively. We derive a dynamical first law by introducing a new perturbative formulation for dynamic horizons in which "slowly evolving" trapping horizons may be viewed as perturbatively non-isolated.
We study static, spherically symmetric, Skyrme black holes in the context of the assumption that they can be viewed as bound states between ordinary bare black holes and solitons. This assumption and results stemming from the isolated horizons formalism lead to several conjectures about the static black hole solutions. These conjectures are tested against the Skyrme black hole solutions. It is shown that, while there is in general good agreement with the conjectures, a crucial aspect seems to violate one of the conjectures.
Recent detailed analysis within the Loop Quantum Gravity calculation of black hole entropy shows a stair-like structure in the behavior of entropy as a function of horizon area. The non-trivial distribution of the degeneracy of the black hole horizon area eigenstates is at the origin of this behavior. This degeneracy distribution is analyzed and a phenomenological model is put forward to study the implications of this distribution in the black hole radiation spectrum. Some qualitative quantum effects are obtained within the isolated horizon framework. This result provides us with a possible ob…
While the formalism of isolated horizons is known for some time, only quite recently the near horizon solution of Einstein's equations has been found in the Bondi-like coordinates by Krishnan in 2012. In this framework, the space-time is regarded as the characteristic initial value problem with the initial data given on the horizon and another null hypersurface. It is not clear, however, what initial data reproduce the simplest physically relevant black hole solution, namely that of Kerr-Newman which describes stationary, axisymmetric black hole with charge. Moreover, Krishnan's construction e…
We consider the nonrotating isolated horizon as an inner boundary of a four-dimensional asymptotically flat spacetime region. Due to the symmetry of the isolated horizon, it turns out that the boundary degrees of freedom can be described by a SO(1,1) BF theory with sources. This provides a new alternative approach to the usual one using Chern-Simons theory to study the black hole entropy. To count the microscopical degrees of freedom with the boundary BF theory, the entropy of the isolated horizon can also be calculated in the framework of loop quantum gravity. The leading-order contribution t…
It is shown in this paper that the symplectic form for the system consisting of $D$-dimensional bulk Palatini gravity and SO$(1,1)$ BF theory on an isolated horizon as a boundary just contains the bulk term. An alternative quantization procedure for the boundary BF theory is presented. The area entropy is determined by the degree of freedom of the bulk spin network states which satisfy a suitable boundary condition. The gauge-fixing condition in the approach and the advantages of the approach are also discussed.
We give a short introduction to the approaches currently used to describe black holes in loop quantum gravity. We will concentrate on the classical issues related to the modeling of black holes as isolated horizons, give a short discussion of their canonical quantization by using loop quantum gravity techniques, and a description of the combinatorial methods necessary to solve the counting problems involved in the computation of the entropy.
Using ideas employed in higher dimensional gravity, non-expanding, weakly isolated and isolated horizons are introduced and analyzed in 2+1 dimensions. While the basic definitions can be taken over directly from higher dimensions, their consequences are somewhat different because of the peculiarities associated with 2+1 dimensions. Nonetheless, as in higher dimensions, we are able to: i) analyze the horizon geometry in detail; ii) introduce the notions of mass, charge and angular momentum of isolated horizons using geometric methods; and, iii) generalize the zeroth and the first laws of black …
We recall some well and some less known results about the Kodama state and the related $θ$ ambiguity in defining canonical variables. Based on them, we make some comments highlighting that the Kodama state for real connection variables can be given a precise meaning and that it implements a vacuum peaked on a (in a suitable sense) maximally symmetric geometry. We also highlight the similarity of this construction with the isolated horizon boundary condition $F \propto Σ$ and stress that it is, in agreement with earlier work, inadequate to define the notion of a quantum horizon.
We study the classical field theoretical formulation of static generic isolated horizons in a manifestly SU(2) invariant formulation. We show that the usual classical description requires revision in the non-static case due to the breaking of diffeomorphism invariance at the horizon leading to the non conservation of the usual pre-symplectic structure. We argue how this difficulty could be avoided by a simple enlargement of the field content at the horizon that restores diffeomorphism invariance. Restricting our attention to static isolated horizons we study the effective theories describing t…
Boundary conditions defining a non-rotating isolated horizon are given in Einstein-Maxwell theory. A spacetime representing a black hole which itself is in equilibrium but whose exterior contains radiation admits such a horizon. Inspired by Hamiltonian mechanics, a (quasi-)local definition of isolated horizon mass is formulated. Although its definition does not refer to infinity, this mass takes the standard value in a Reissner-Nordstrom solution. Furthermore, under certain technical assumptions, the mass of an isolated horizon is shown to equal the future limit of the Bondi energy.
Using a constrained formalism for Einstein equations in Dirac gauge, we propose to compute excised quasistationary initial data for black hole spacetimes in full general relativity. Vacuum spacetime settings are numerically constructed by using the isolated horizon formalism; we especially tackle the conformal metric part of our equations, assuming global stationarity. We show that a no-boundary treatment can be used on the horizon for the equation related to the conformal metric. We relate this finding to previous suggestions in the literature, and use our results to assess the widely used co…
We study the numerical implementation of a set of boundary conditions derived from the isolated horizon formalism, and which characterize a black hole whose horizon is in quasi-equilibrium. More precisely, we enforce these geometrical prescriptions as inner boundary conditions on an excised sphere, in the numerical resolution of the Conformal Thin Sandwich equations. As main results, we firstly establish the consistency of including in the set of boundary conditions a "constant surface gravity" prescription, interpretable as a lapse boundary condition, and secondly we assess how the prescripti…
Isolated Horizons have played an important role in gravitational physics, from characterization of the endpoint of black hole mergers to black hole entropy. With an eye towards a canonical formulation we consider general relativity in first order form. We focus on two issues: i) The role of the internal gauge freedom in consistent formulations of the action principle, and ii) the role a 3+1 decomposition has in the allowed internal gauge. We clarify how the requirement of well posed variational principles compatible with general weakly isolated horizons (WIHs) does lead to a partial gauge fixi…
A new definition of quasi--local angular momentum of non--axisymmetric marginally outer trapped surfaces is proposed. It is based on conformal decomposition of the two--dimensional metric and the action of the group of conformal symmetries. The definition is completely general and agrees with the standard one in axi--symmetric surfaces.
Following a recent proposal, we consider the most general structure possible for the Hamiltonian operator associated with the Quantum Isolated Horizon(QIH) with explanations of the underlying physical motivations. An extensive thermodynamic analysis with this model Hamiltonian is presented. Considering {\it fixed} number of punctures, the canonical partition function can now be written in the usual energy ensemble. Arguing that the known classical results must follow in the correspondence limit (viz. the equilibrium temperature as observed by a local observer) the model is fixed, yielding the …
The isolated horizon framework was introduced in order to provide a local description of black holes that are in equilibrium with their (possibly dynamic) environment. Over the past several years, the framework has been extended to include matter fields (dilaton, Yang-Mills etc) in D=4 dimensions and cosmological constant in $D\geq3$ dimensions. In this article we present a further extension of the framework that includes black holes in higher-dimensional Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet (EGB) gravity. In particular, we construct a covariant phase space for EGB gravity in arbitrary dimensions which allow…
The Isolated Horizons (IH) formalism, together with a simple phenomenological model for colored black holes has been used to predict non-trivial formulae that relate the ADM mass of the solitons and hairy Black Holes of Gravity-Matter system on the one hand, and several horizon properties of the black holes in the other. In this article, the IH formalism is tested numerically for spherically symmetric solutions to an Einstein-Higgs system where hairy black holes were recently found to exist. It is shown that the mass formulae still hold and that, by appropriately extending the current model, o…
We formulate conditions on the geometry of a non-expanding horizon $Δ$ which are sufficient for the space-time metric to coincide on $Δ$ with the Kerr metric. We introduce an invariant which can be used as a measure of how different the geometry of a given non-expanding horizon is from the geometry of the Kerr horizon. Directly, our results concern the space-time metric at $\IH$ at the zeroth and the first orders. Combained with the results of Ashtekar, Beetle and Lewandowski, our conditions can be used to compare the space-time geometry at the non-expanding horizon with that of Kerr to every …
