The notion of non-equatorial spherical photon orbits is among the very special properties of the Kerr spacetime of rotating black holes and is one that leaves a clear mark on the electromagnetic and gravitational wave signature of these objects. In principle, one could use observations like the shadow a black hole casts when is externally illuminated or the gravitational quasi-normal mode ringdown of merging black holes in order to identify the Kerr metric via its light-ring and spherical photon orbit structure, or perhaps look for the presence of more exotic non-Kerr ultracompact objects. This approach would require some understanding of how circular photon orbits behave in alternative (and far less special) non-Kerr spacetimes. In this letter we explore the connection between the existence of spherical photon orbits and the separability of a general stationary and axisymmetric spacetime. We show that a spacetime cannot be separable if it possesses an equatorial photon ring but at the same time does not admit (in any coordinate system) non-equatorial spherical photon orbits. As a result, the separability-circularity connection could serve as a non-Kerr diagnostic of black hole candidates.
We examine hidden symmetry and its relation to the separability of the Maxwell equation on the Wahlquist spacetime. After seeing that the Wahlquist spacetime is a type-D spacetime whose repeated principal null directions are shear-free and geodesic, we show that the spacetime admits three gauged conformal Killing-Yano (GCKY) tensors which are in a relation with torsional conformal Killing-Yano tensors. As a by-product, we obtain an ordinary CKY tensor. We also show that thanks to the GCKY tensors, the Maxwell equation reduces to three Debye equations, which are scalar-type equations, and two o…
The Kerr-Taub-NUT spacetime in the Kaluza-Klein theory represents a localized stationary and axisymmetric object in four dimensions from the Kaluza-Klein viewpoint. That is, it harbors companion electromagnetic and dilaton fields, thereby showing up the signature of the extra fifth dimension. We explore the separability structure of this spacetime and show that the Hamilton-Jacobi equation for geodesics admits the complete separation of variables only for massless geodesics. This implies the existence of the hidden symmetries in the spacetime, which are generated by the conformal Killing tenso…
In this paper, we show the additive separation of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, present the 4-velocity of the test particles, and attempt to find the equatorial circular photon orbit (ECPO) in the Kerr-Sen-Taub-NUT (KSTN) solution of the low energy limit of heterotic string theory. In the process of trying to find the ECPO, we instead encounter a ring singularity that could be outside the horizon of the KSTN black hole.
We demonstrate the separability of the Hamilton-Jacobi and scalar field equations in general higher dimensional Kerr-NUT-AdS spacetimes. No restriction on the parameters characterizing these metrics is imposed.
Recently a new formalism for perturbations of Maxwell's equations on the background of the Kerr-NUT-(A)dS spacetime was proposed, with which the equations are reduced to a equation of motion of a scalar field that can be solved by separation of variables. In this formalism the differential operators that commute with the operators of the equations of motion, called symmetry operators, played a key role to establish the separable structure. In this work we propose a method to reproduce these commuting symmetry operators in terms of the geometric quantities associated to the hidden symmetry of t…
The properties of light rays around compact objects surrounded by a plasma are affected by both strong gravitational fields described by a general-relativistic spacetime and by a dispersive and refractive medium, characterized by the density distribution of the plasma. We study these effects employing the relativistic Hamiltonian formalism under the assumption of stationarity and axisymmetry. The necessary and sufficient conditions on the metric and on the plasma frequency are formulated, such that the rays can be analytically determined from a fully separated Hamilton-Jacobi equation. We demo…
We intrinsically characterize separability of the Dirac equation in Kerr-NUT-(A)dS spacetimes in all dimensions. Namely, we explicitly demonstrate that in such spacetimes there exists a complete set of first-order mutually commuting operators, one of which is the Dirac operator, that allows for common eigenfunctions which can be found in a separated form and correspond precisely to the general solution of the Dirac equation found by Oota and Yasui [arXiv:0711.0078]. Since all the operators in the set can be generated from the principal conformal Killing-Yano tensor, this establishes the (up to…
We demonstrate the separability of the massive vector (Proca) field equation in general Kerr-NUT-(A)dS black hole spacetimes in any number of dimensions, filling a long-standing gap in the literature. The obtained separated equations are studied in more detail for the four-dimensional Kerr geometry and the corresponding quasinormal modes are calculated. Two of the three independent polarizations of the Proca field are shown to emerge from the separation ansatz and the results are found in a perfect agreement with those of the recent numerical study where the full coupled partial differential e…
We study properties of a recently proposed new ansatz for separation of variables in the Maxwell equations in four dimensional Kerr-NUT-(A)dS spacetime. We demonstrate that a dual field, which is also a solution of the source-free Maxwell equations, can be presented in a similar form. This result implies that the corresponding separated equations possess a discrete symmetry under a special transform of the separation parameters.
We study separability of scalar, vector and tensor fields in 5-dimensional Myers-Perry spacetimes with equal angular momenta. In these spacetimes, there exists enlarged symmetry, $U(2) \simeq SU(2) \times U(1)$. Using the group theoretical method with a twist, we perform the dimensional reduction at the action level and show that both vector and tensor field equations can be reduced to coupled ordinary differential equations. We reveal the structure of couplings between variables. In particular, we have obtained the decoupled master equations for zero modes of a vector field. The same analysis…
We introduce a pregeometry employing uniform spaces over the denumerable set X of spacetime events. The discrete uniformity D_X over X is used to obtain a pregeometric model of macroscopic spacetime neighborhoods. We then use a uniformity base generated by a topological group structure over X to provide a pregeometric model of microscopic spacetime neighborhoods. Accordingly, quantum non-separability as it pertains to non-locality is understood pregeometrically as a contrast between microscopic spacetime neighborhoods and macroscopic spacetime neighborhoods. A nexus between this pregeometry an…
In the Kerr-Newman spacetime the Teukolsky master equation, governing the fundamental test fields, is of great importance. We derive an analogous master equation for the non-rotating C-metric which encompass massless Klein-Gordon field, neutrino field, Maxwell field, Rarita-Schwinger field and gravitational perturbations. This equation is shown to be separable in terms of "accelerated spin weighted spherical harmonics". It is shown that, contrary to ordinary spin weighted spherical harmonics, the "accelerated" ones are different for different spins. In some cases, the equation for eigenfunctio…
We demonstrate separability of conformally coupled scalar field equation in general (off-shell) Kerr-NUT-AdS spacetimes in all dimensions. The separability is intrinsically characterized by the existence of a complete set of mutually commuting conformal wave operators that can be constructed from a hidden symmetry of the principal Killing-Yano tensor. By token of conformal symmetry, the separability also works for any Weyl rescaled (off-shell) metrics. This is especially interesting in four dimensions where it guarantees separability of a conformally coupled scalar field in the general Plebans…
In the literature, the Newman-Janis algorithm (NJA) has been widely used to construct stationary and axisymmetric spacetimes to describe rotating black holes. In addition, it has been recently shown that the general stationary and axisymmetric spacetime generated through NJA allows the complete separability of the null geodesic equations. In fact, the Hamilton-Jacobi equation in this spacetime is also separable if one of the metric functions is additively separable. In this work, we further study the conditions for a separable Klein-Gordon equation in such a general spacetime. The relations be…
We present covariant symmetry operators for the conformal wave equation in the (off-shell) Kerr-NUT-AdS spacetimes. These operators, that are constructed from the principal Killing-Yano tensor, its `symmetry descendants', and the curvature tensor, guarantee separability of the conformal wave equation in these spacetimes. We next discuss how these operators give rise to a full set of conformally invariant mutually commuting operators for the conformally rescaled spacetimes and underlie the $R$-separability of the conformal wave equation therein. Finally, by employing the WKB approximation we de…
We investigate photon surfaces and their stability in a less symmetric spacetime, a general static warped product with a warping function acting on a Riemannian submanifold of codimension two. We find a one-dimensional pseudopotential that gives photon surfaces as its extrema regardless of the spatial symmetry of the submanifold. The maxima and minima correspond to unstable and stable photon surfaces, respectively. It is analogous to the potential giving null circular orbits in a spherically symmetric spacetime. We also see that photon surfaces indeed exist for the spacetimes which are solutio…
We demonstrate separability of the Dirac equation in weakly charged rotating black hole spacetimes in all dimensions. The electromagnetic field of the black hole is described by a test field approximation, with vector potential proportional to the primary Killing vector field. It is shown that the demonstrated separability can be intrinsically characterized by the existence of a complete set of mutually commuting first order symmetry operators generated from the principal Killing-Yano tensor. The presented results generalize the results on integrability of charged particle motion and separabil…
We present a systematic construction of the Penrose coordinates and plane wave limits of spacetimes for which both the null Hamilton-Jacobi and geodesic equations separate. The method is illustrated for the Kerr-NUT-(A)dS four-dimensional black holes. The plane wave limits of the near horizon geometry of the extreme Kerr black hole are also explored. All near horizon geometries of extreme black holes with a Killing horizon admit Minkowski spacetime as a plane wave limit.
Many black hole spacetimes with a 3-form field exhibit a hidden symmetry encoded in a torsion generalization of the principal Killing--Yano tensor. This tensor determines basic properties of such black holes while also underlying the separability of the Hamilton--Jacobi, Klein--Gordon, and (torsion-modified) Dirac field equations in their background. As a specific example, we consider the Chong--Cvetič--Lü--Pope black hole of $D=5$ minimal gauged supergravity and show that the torsion-modified vector field equations can also be separated, with the principal tensor playing a key role in the sep…
We study separability of the Hamilton-Jacobi and massive Klein-Gordon equations in the general Kerr-de Sitter spacetime in all dimensions. Complete separation of both equations is carried out in 2n+1 spacetime dimensions with all n rotation parameters equal, in which case the rotational symmetry group is enlarged from (U(1))^n to U(n). We explicitly construct the additional Killing vectors associated with the enlarged symmetry group which permit separation. We also derive first-order equations of motion for particles in these backgrounds and examine some of their properties.
We examine the separability properties of the equation of motion for a stationary string near a rotating charged black hole with two independent angular momenta in five-dimensional minimal gauged supergravity. It is known that the separability problem for the stationary string in a general stationary spacetime is reduced to that for the usual Hamilton-Jacobi equation for geodesics of its quotient space with one dimension fewer. Using this fact, we show that the "effective metric" of the quotient space does not allow the complete separability for the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, albeit such a sepa…
Sonic point/photon sphere (SP/PS) correspondence is a theoretical phenomenon which appears in fluid dynamics on curved spacetime and its existence has been recently proved in quite wide situations as theorems. The theorems state that a sonic point (SP) of radiation fluid flow must be on an unstable photon sphere (PS) when the fluid flows radially or rotationally on an equatorial plane in spherically symmetric spacetime of arbitrary dimensions. In this paper, we investigate SP/PS correspondence in spherically, planarly and hyperbolically symmetric spacetime. As the corresponding objects of phot…
We introduce in the explicit form the tetrads of arbitrary observers in spacetimes with spherical and axial symmetries. The observers confined to the equatorial plane are parametrized by the pair of functions. We apply this description in the analysis of the null-geodesics in the observers' frames. The observers with the constant acceleration are distinguished.
The residual gauge freedom within the null quasi-spherical coordinate condition is studied, for spacetimes admitting an expanding, shear-free null foliation. The freedom consists of a boost and rotation at each coordinate sphere, corresponding to a specification of inertial frame at each sphere. Explicit formulae involving arbitrary functions of two variables are obtained for the accelerated Minkowski, Schwarzschild, and Robinson-Trautman spacetimes. These examples will be useful as test metrics in numerical relativity.
We consider the problem of picking a physically motivated vacuum state on a spherically symmetric spacetime with an extra conformal Killing vector, as opposed to an extra Killing vector as in the Schwarzschild case. Considering a conformal symmetry instead of a symmetry allows us to consider spacetimes that are dynamical and not static (like Schwarzschild). The extra conformal symmetry allows us to calculate the response of particle detectors however. We look at the specific example of a self-similar LTB spacetime that represents a spherically symmetric but inhomogeneous cosmology. We remark t…
The Dirac equation governs the behaviour of spin-1/2 particles. The equation's separability into decoupled radial and angular differential equations is a crucial step in analytical and numerical computations of quantities like eigenvalues, quasinormal modes and bound states. However, this separation has been performed in co-ordinate systems that are not well-behaved in either limiting regions of $r \rightarrow r_{horizon}$, $r \rightarrow r_\infty$ or both. In particular, the extensively used Boyer-Lindquist co-ordinates contains unphysical features of spacetime geometry for both $r_{horizon}$…
Consider a spherically symmetric spacelike slice through a spherically symmetric spacetime. One can derive a universal bound for the optical scalars on any such slice. The only requirement is that the matter sources satisfy the dominant energy condition and that the slice be asymptotically flat and regular at the origin. This bound can be used to derive new conditions for the formation of apparent horizons. The bounds hold even when the matter has a distribution on a shell or blows up at the origin so as to give a conical singularity.
We apply the Dirac-Bergmann algorithm for the analysis of constraints to gauge theories defined on spherically symmetric black hole backgrounds. We find that the constraints for a given theory are modified on such spacetimes through the presence of additional contributions from the horizon. As a concrete example, we consider the Maxwell field on a black hole background, and determine the role of the horizon contributions on the dynamics of the theory.
We give the necessary and sufficient (local) conditions for a metric tensor to be a non conformally flat spherically symmetric solution. These conditions exclusively involve explicit concomitants of the Riemann tensor. As a direct application we obtain the {\em ideal} labeling of the Schwarzschild, Reissner-Nordström and Lemaître-Tolman-Bondi solutions.
It is well known that static spherically symmetric spacetimes can admit foliations by flat spacelike hypersurfaces, which are best described in terms of the Painlevè--Gullstrand coordinates. The uniqueness and existence of such foliations were addressed earlier. In this paper, we prove, purely geometrically, that any possible foliation of a static spherically symmetric spacetime by an arbitrary codimension-one spherical spacelike geometry, up to time translation and rotation, is unique, and we find the algebraic condition under which it exists. This leads us to what can be considered as the mo…
In this paper we explicitly demonstrate separability of the Maxwell equations in a wide class of higher-dimensional metrics which include the Kerr-NUT-(A)dS solution as a special case. Namely, we prove such separability for the most general metric admitting the principal tensor (a non-degenerate closed conformal Killing-Yano 2-form). To this purpose we use a special ansatz for the electromagnetic potential, which we represent as a product of a (rank 2) polarization tensor with the gradient of a potential function, generalizing the ansatz recently proposed by Lunin. We show that for a special c…
We describe a method to analyze causal geodesics in static and spherically symmetric spacetimes of Kerr-Schild form which, in particular, allows for a detailed study of the geodesics in the vicinity of the central singularity by means of a regularization procedure based on a generalization of the McGehee regularization for the motion of Newtonian point particles moving in a power-law potential. The McGehee regularization was used by Belbruno and Pretorius to perform a dynamical system regularization of the central singularity of the motion of massless test particles in the Schwarzschild spacet…
A large class of Type II fluid solutions to Einstein field equations in N-dimensional spherical spacetimes is found, wich includes most of the known solutions. A family of the generalized collapsing Vaidya solutions with homothetic self-similarity, parametrized by a constant $λ$, is studied, and found that when $λ$ $>$ $λ_c(N)$, the collapse always forms black holes, and when $λ$ $<$ $λ_c(N)$, it always forms naked singularities, where $λ_c(N)$ is function of the spacetime dimension N only.
We examine potential deformations of inner black hole and cosmological horizons in Reissner-Nordström de-Sitter spacetimes. While the rigidity of the outer black hole horizon is guaranteed by theorem, that theorem applies to neither the inner black hole nor past cosmological horizon. Further for pure deSitter spacetime it is clear that the cosmological horizon can be deformed (by translation). For specific parameter choices, it is shown that both inner black hole and cosmological horizons can be infinitesimally deformed. However these do not extend to finite deformations. The corresponding res…
Set of analytic solutions of the geodesic equation in a spherical conformal spacetime is presented. Solutions of this geodesics can be expressed in terms of the Weierstrass {\wp} function and the Kleinian σ function. Using conserved energy and angular momentum we can characterize the different orbits. Also, considering parametric diagrams and effective potentials, we plot some possible orbits. Moreover, with the help of analytical solutions, we investigate the light deflection for such an escape orbit.
The gravitational collapse of a spherical distribution, in a class of f(R) theories of gravity, where f(R) is power function of R, is discussed. The spacetime is assumed to admit a homothetic Killing vector. In the collapsing modes, some of the situations indeed hit a singularity, but they are all covered with an apparent horizon. Some peculiar cases are observed where the collapsing body settles to a constant radius at a given value of the radial coordinate.
The general metric for N-dimensional spherically symmetric and conformally flat spacetimes is given, and all the homogeneous and isotropic solutions for a perfect fluid with the equation of state $p = αρ$ are found. These solutions are then used to model the gravitational collapse of a compact ball. It is found that when the collapse has continuous self-similarity, the formation of black holes always starts with zero mass, and when the collapse has no such a symmetry, the formation of black holes always starts with a mass gap.
We show that it is possible to embed the 1+1 dimensional reduction of certain spherically symmetric black hole spacetimes into 2+1 Minkowski space. The spacetimes of interest (Schwarzschild de-Sitter, Schwarzschild anti de-Sitter, and Reissner-Nordstrom near the outer horizon) represent a class of metrics whose geometries allow for such embeddings. The embedding diagrams have a dynamic character which allows one to represent the motion of test particles. We also analyze various features of the embedding construction, deriving the general conditions under which our procedure provides a smooth e…
By starting with a seed Newtonian potential-density pair we construct relativistic thick spherical shell models for a Majumdar-Papapetrou type conformastatic spacetime. As a simple example, we consider a family of Plummer-Hernquist type relativistic spherical shells. As a second application, these structures are then used to model a system composite by a dust disk and a halo of matter. We study the equatorial circular motion of test particles around such configurations. Also the stability of the orbits is analyzed for radial perturbation using an extension of the Rayleigh criterion. The models…
In computational relativity, critical behaviour near the black hole threshold has been studied numerically for several models in the last decade. In this paper we present a spatial Galerkin method, suitable for finding numerical solutions of the Einstein-Dirac equations in spherically symmetric spacetime (in polar/areal coordinates). The method features exact conservation of the total electric charge and allows for a spatial mesh adaption based on physical arclength. Numerical experiments confirm excellent robustness and convergence properties of our approach. Hence, this new algorithm is well…
It is well-known \cite{mtbh} that {\em all} black hole solutions of General Relativity are of Petrov-type D. It may thus be expected that the spacetime of {\em physically realizable} spherical gravitational collapse is also of Petrov-type D. We show that a radially homothetic spacetime, {\em ie}, a spherically symmetric spacetime with hyper-surface orthogonal, radial, homothetic Killing vector, is of Petrov-type D. As has been argued in \cite{prl1}, it is a spacetime of {\em physically realizable} spherical collapse.
A class of spherical collapsing exact solutions with electromagnetic charge is derived. This class of solutions -- in general anisotropic -- contains however as a particular case the charged dust model already known in literature. Under some regularity assumptions that in the uncharged case give rise to naked singularities, it is shown that the process of shell focusing singularities avoidance -- already known for the dust collapse -- also takes place here, determing shell crossing effects or a completely regular solution.
We calculate the instantaneous proper radial acceleration of test particles (as measured by a locally defined Lorentzian observer) in a Weyl spacetime, close to the horizon. As expected from the Israel theorem, there appear some bifurcations with respect to the spherically symmetric case (Schwarzschild), which are explained in terms of the behaviour of the superenergy, bringing out the physical relevance of this quantity in the study of general relativistic systems.
Exact solutions of Einstein equations with null Riemman-Christoffel curvature tensor everywhere, except on a hypersurface, are studied using quantum particles obeying the Klein-Gordon equation. We consider the particular cases when the curvature is represented by a Dirac delta function with support either on a sphere or on a cylinder (spherical and cylindrical shells). In particular, we analyze the necessity of extra boundary conditions on the shells.
The Johannsen-Psaltis spacetime explicitly violates the no hair theorem. It describes rotating black holes with scalar hair in the form of parametric deviations from the Kerr metric. In principle, black hole solutions in any modified theory of gravity could be written in terms of the Johannsen-Psaltis metric. We study the accretion of gas onto a static limit of this spacetime. We utilise a recently proposed pseudo-Newtonian formulation of the dynamics around arbitrary static, spherically symmetric spacetimes. We obtain a potential that generalises the Paczyński-Wiita potential to the static Jo…
We complete the formulation of a general framework for the analysis of high-order nonspherical perturbations of a four-dimensional spherical spacetime by including a gauge-invariant description of the perturbations. We present a general algorithm to construct these invariants and provide explicit formulas for the case of second-order metric perturbations. We show that the well-known problem of lack of invariance for the first-order perturbations with l=0,1 propagates to increasing values of l for perturbations of higher order, owing to mode coupling. We also discuss in which circumstances it i…
The Kerr spacetime in Kaluza-Klein theory describes a rotating black hole in four dimensions from the Kaluza-Klein point of view and involves the signature of an extra dimension that shows up through the appearance of the electric and dilaton charges. In this paper, we study the separability properties of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation for geodesics and the associated hidden symmetries in the spacetime of the Kerr-Kaluza-Klein black hole. We show that the complete separation of variables occurs only for massless geodesics, implying the existence of hidden symmetries generated by a second rank co…
Interior solutions of Einstein's equations with a non-zero cosmological constant are given for static and spherically symmetric configurations of uniform density. The metric tensor and pressure are determined for both positive and negative values of the cosmological constant. Limits on the outer radius of the interior solutions are established. It is shown that, contrary to the cases of the limits on the interior Schwarzschild and Reissner--Nordström solutions with a zero cosmological constant, these limits do not fully coincide with the conditions of embeddability of the optical reference geo…
The Gerlach and Sengupta (GS) formalism of coordinate-invariant, first-order, spherical and nonspherical perturbations around an arbitrary spherical spacetime is generalized to higher orders, focusing on second-order perturbation theory. The GS harmonics are generalized to an arbitrary number of indices on the unit sphere and a formula is given for their products. The formalism is optimized for its implementation in a computer algebra system, something that becomes essential in practice given the size and complexity of the equations. All evolution equations for the second-order perturbations, …
The thermodynamic properties of a shell of bosons with the inner surface locating at Planck length away from the horizon of Schwarzschild black holes by using statistical mechanics are studied. The covariant partition function of bosons is obtained, from which the Bose-Einstein condensation of bosons is found at a non-zero temperature in the curved spacetimes. As a special case of bosons, we analyze the entropy of photon gas near the horizon of the Schwarzschild black hole, which shows an area dependence similar to the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. The results may offer new perspectives on the s…
We consider the problem of determination of a volume of some bounded space-like hypersurfaces in the case of spherically symmetric spacetimes. In the case when the hypersurfaces is cut or bounded by a light-like hypersurface the problem may not be well defined. In order to define properly the volume we introduce the volume forms related to the given foliation (observer) of the considered spacetime. In the case of the constant curvature slice the volume of the hypersurface cut by the horizon (light-like surface) becomes composed of the two parts, outer and inner, treated differently. We compute…
In this note, we study the integrability of geodesic flow in the background of a very general class of spacetimes with NUT-charge(s) in higher dimensions. This broad set encompasses multiply NUT-charged solutions, electrically and magnetically charged solutions, solutions with a cosmological constant, and time dependant bubble-like solutions. We also derive first-order equations of motion for particles in these backgrounds. Separability turns out to be possible due to the existence of non-trivial irreducible Killing tensors. Finally, we also examine the Klein-Gordon equation for a scalar field…
We investigate motion of test particles in exact spacetimes with an expanding impulsive gravitational wave which propagates in Minkowski, de Sitter or anti-de Sitter universe. Using the continuous form of these metrics we derive explicit junction conditions and simple refraction formulae for null, timelike and spacelike geodesics crossing a general impulse of this type. In particular, we present a detailed geometrical description of the motion of test particles in a special class of axially symmetric spacetimes in which the impulse is generated by a snapped cosmic string.
The spherically symmetric static spacetimes are classified according to their matter collineations. These are studied when the energy-momentum tensor is degenerate and also when it is non-degenerate. We have found a case where the energy-momentum tensor is degenerate but the group of matter collineations is finite. For the non-degenerate case, we obtain either {\it four}, {\it five}, {\it six} or {\it ten} independent matter collineations in which four are isometries and the rest are proper. We conclude that the matter collineations coincide with the Ricci collineations but the constraint equa…
Conformal mappings of surfaces of constant mean curvature onto compact bounded background spaces are constructed for Minkowski space-time and for Schwarzschild black hole spacetimes. In the black hole example, it is found that initial data on these CMC surfaces can be regular on the compact background space only when a certain condition is satisfied. That condition implies that the shift vector points inward from all parts of the boundary of the compact background. It also implies that the second fundamental form of these surfaces can never be isotropic when black holes are present.
