We consider necessary and sufficient conditions for photons emitted from the vicinity of a Kerr black hole horizon to escape to infinity. The radial equation of motion determines necessary conditions for photons to reach infinity, and the polar angle equation of motion further restricts the allowed region of photon motion. Unlike emission from the equatorial plane, the latter restrictions are crucial for photon escape when the initial polar angle of the emission point is arbitrary. We provide a visualization tool to analyze these two conditions and demonstrate a procedure for revealing photon escape. Finally, we completely identify the two-dimensional impact parameter space in which photons can escape.
We consider necessary and sufficient conditions for photons emitted from an arbitrary spacetime position of the extremal Kerr black hole to escape to infinity. The radial equation of motion determines the necessary conditions for photons emitted from $r=r_*$ to escape to infinity, and the polar angle equation of motion further restricts the allowed region of photon motion. From these two conditions, we provide a method to visualize a two-dimensional photon impact parameter space that allows photons to escape to infinity, i.e., the escapable region. Finally, we completely identify the escapable…
Assuming that a particle source is at rest in a locally non-rotating frame on the equatorial plane of the Kerr-Sen black hole, we investigate the escape of the massless particle and massive particle from the black hole to spatial infinity. We calculate the escape probabilities of the emitted particles. We find that the angular momentum of the Kerr-Sen black hole boosts the escape probabilities near the horizon of the extreme Kerr-Sen black hole; however the angular momentum of the Kerr-Sen black hole suppresses the escape probabilities near the horizon of the non-extreme Kerr-Sen black hole. W…
We investigate here the issue of observability of high energy collisions around Kerr naked singu- larity and show that the results are in contrast with the Kerr black hole case. We had shown earlier that it would be possible to have ultrahigh energy collisions between the particles close to the loca- tion r = M around the Kerr naked singularity if the Kerr spin parameter transcends the unity by an infinitesimally small amount a $\rightarrow 1^+$. The collision is between initially ingoing particle that turns back as an outgoing particle due to angular momentum barrier, with another ingoing par…
We first study the escape probability of the spinning particle emitted from the Kerr black hole and find that the escape probability increases with the spin of the particle around the extreme Kerr black hole; in contrast, the escape probability decreases at the position near the horizon but increases at the position far away from the horizon with the increasing spin of the particle. We then probe the relation between the escape probabilities and the energy extraction efficiencies of collisional Penrose processes for the particles with varying spin. For the extreme Kerr black hole, the efficien…
We consider the escape probability of a photon emitted from the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) of a rapidly rotating black hole. As an isotropically emitting light source on a circular orbit reduces its orbital radius, the escape probability of a photon emitted from it decreases monotonically. The escape probability evaluated at the ISCO also decreases monotonically as the black hole spin increases. When the dimensionless Kerr parameter $a$ is at the Thorne limit $a=0.998$, the escape probability from the ISCO is $58.8\%$. In the extremal case $a=1$, even if the orbital radius of the l…
We investigate the escape probabilities of the photons near the horizon of the Kerr-Sen black hole. We find that the escape probabilities of the photons are nonzero in the event horizon limit of the extreme Kerr-Sen black hole if the light sources are near the equator. We show that the escape probability of a photon increases with the radial position of the light source. It is also uncovered that the escape probability decreases if the light source with constant radius moves from the equatorial plane to the pole. Besides, we discover that the escape probability of a photon in the Carter frame …
We study the dynamics and escape of charged particles initially orbiting a weakly magnetized Kerr black hole after they get kicked in the direction normal to the orbit. The case of neutral particles is analysed first and the escape conditions are given analytically. A general analysis of charged particles innermost stable circular orbits (ISCO)s is performed numerically. We then study the charged particles three-dimensional motion and give an effective condition for their escape. We also discuss how the black hole rotation affects the escape of charged particles and the chaoticness in their dy…
The nonlinear superposition of the delta-metric and the Kerr metric results in delta-Kerr metric that represents a deformed Kerr black hole with delta = 1 + q, where q > 0 is proportional to the nonrelativistic quadrupole moment of the collapsed configuration. We study this spacetime and determine q_{+} such that for q, 0 < q < q_{+}, the outer spacetime singularity remains a null hypersurface. In this case, delta-Kerr spacetime represents a generalized black hole, namely, an asymptotically flat, stationary and axisymmetric vacuum solution of general relativity for which the outer singularity …
The Landau-Lifshitz decomposition of spacetime, or (1+3)-split, determines the three-dimensional velocity and acceleration as measured by static observers. We use these quantities to analyze the geodesic particles in Schwarzschild and Kerr spacetimes. We show that in both cases there is no room for a positive acceleration (repulsion). We also compute the escape and terminal speeds. The escape speed in the case of a static black hole coincides with the Newton result. For the Kerr spacetime, the escape speed depends on the polar angle, showing that a particle needs less energy to escape in the d…
We provide an invariant characterization of the physical properties of the Kerr spacetime. We introduce two dimensionless invariants, constructed out of some known curvature invariants, that act as detectors for the event horizon and ergosurface of the Kerr black hole. We also show that the mass and angular momentum can be extracted from local measurements of the curvature invariants, which in the weak field limit could be used to approximate the total angular momentum and mass of a system of merging black holes. Finally, we introduce a dimensionless invariant that gives a local measure of the…
The resonant mode spectrum of the Kerr-Newman spacetime is presently unknown. These modes, called the quasinormal modes, play a central role in determining the stability of Kerr-Newman black holes and their response to perturbations. We present a new formalism, generalized from time-independent perturbation theory in quantum mechanics, for calculating the quasinormal mode frequencies of weakly charged Kerr-Newman spacetimes of arbitrary spin. Our method makes use of an original technique for applying perturbation theory to zeroth-order solutions that are not square- integrable, and it can be a…
The quasinormal resonant modes of massless neutral fields in near-extremal Kerr-Newman-de Sitter black-hole spacetimes are calculated in the eikonal regime. It is explicitly proved that, in the angular momentum regime ${\bar a}> \sqrt{{1-2{\barΛ}\over{4+{\barΛ}/3}}}$, the black-hole spacetimes are characterized by slowly decaying resonant modes which are described by the compact formula $\Imω(n)=κ_+\cdot(n+{1\over2})$ [here the physical parameters $\{{\bar a},κ_+,{\barΛ},n\}$ are respectively the dimensionless angular momentum of the black hole, its characteristic surface gravity, the dimensio…
It has recently been proposed that the accreting collapsed object GRO J1655--40 could contain a non-zero gravitomagnetic monopole, and hence could be better described with the more general Kerr-Taub-NUT (KTN) spacetime, instead of the Kerr spacetime. This makes the KTN spacetime astrophysically relevant. In this paper, we study properties of various circular orbits in the KTN spacetime, and find the locations of circular photon orbits (CPOs) and innermost-stable-circular-orbits (ISCOs). Such orbits are important to interpret the observed X-ray spectral and timing properties of accreting collap…
General properties of Kerr-Schild spacetimes with (A)dS background in arbitrary dimension are studied. It is shown that the geodetic Kerr-Schild vector k is a multiple WAND of the spacetime. Einstein Kerr-Schild spacetimes with non-expanding k are shown to be of Weyl type N, while the expanding spacetimes are of type II or D. It is shown that this class of spacetimes obeys the optical constraint. This allows us to solve Sachs equation, determine r-dependence of boost weight zero components of the Weyl tensor and discuss curvature singularities.
The null string's equations of motion and constraints in the Kerr spacetime are given. We assume a generic ansatz for the null strings in the Kerr spacetime and we present the resulting solutions in quadratures. Some specific string configurations, that follow from the generic one, are considered separately. In each case we also extract the corresponding solutions in the Schwarzschild spacetime.
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.
We show that, contrary to what is usually claimed in the literature, the zero mass limit of Kerr spacetime is not flat Minkowski space but a spacetime whose geometry is only locally flat. This limiting spacetime, as the Kerr spacetime itself, contains two asymptotic regions and hence cannot be topologically trivial. It also contains a curvature singularity, because the power-law singularity of the Weyl tensor vanishes in the limit but there remains a distributional contribution of the Ricci tensor. This spacetime can be interpreted as a wormhole sourced by a negative tension ring. We also exte…
It is argued that the main results of the paper of Gibbons and Volkov (Phys. Rev. D {\bf 96}, 024053 (2017)) come from erroneous interpretations of the surface $r=0$ in the Kerr and Kerr-(anti)de Sitter spacetimes.
We construct a new type of Chandrasekhar transformation in Kerr spacetime using the different tortoise coordinate, which is useful for exact analysis to study Teukolsky equation with arbitrary frequency. We also give the interpretation of our transformation using the formalism of the quantum Seiberg-Witten geometry.
The superradiant instability modes of ultralight massive vector bosons are studied for weakly charged rotating black holes in Einstein--Maxwell gravity (the Kerr--Newman solution) and low-energy heterotic string theory (the Kerr--Sen black hole). We show that in both these cases, the corresponding massive vector (Proca) equations can be fully separated, exploiting the hidden symmetry present in these spacetimes. The resultant ordinary differential equations are solved numerically to find the most unstable modes of the Proca field in the two backgrounds and compared to the vacuum (Kerr black ho…
We compute the energy and angular momenta of recent D-dimensional Kerr-AdS solutions to cosmological Einstein gravity, as well as of the BTZ metric, using our invariant charge definitions.
We present a novel approach in constructing deviations of the Kerr spacetime whereas the symmetries can be preserved. The method was applied trivially in all known classical black-hole spacetimes tested, while provides the possibility of testing and inventing deformations of Kerr in a quick and innovative way. The methodology is based on earlier work by Benenti and Francaviglia (1979) on separability of geodesic equations while we exploited the elegant properties of Yano tensor in order to provide an additional way of getting the Carter constant.
Black hole entropy of the Kerr-like family of spacetimes is introduced as the canonical charge on the horizon. Treating these spacetimes in the framework of Poincaré gauge theory either as Riemannian solutions or as solutions with torsion, it is shown that these geometrically different setups lead to the same black hole entropy.
In this paper we argue that the well-known maximal extensions of the Kerr and Kerr-Newman spacetimes characterized by a specific gluing (on disks) of two asymptotically flat regions with ADM masses of opposite signs are physically inconsistent and actually non-analytic. We also discover a correct geometrical interpretation of the surface $r=0$, $t={\rm const}$ - a dicone in the case of the Kerr solution and a more sophisticated surface of non-zero Gaussian curvature in the case of the Kerr-Newman solution - which suggests that the problem of constructing the maximal analytic extensions for the…
Based on the idea of emergent spacetime, we consider the possibility that the material underlying our spacetime is modelled by a fluid. We are particularly interested in possible connections between the geometrical properties of the emergent spacetime and the properties of the underlying fluid. We find some partial results that support this possibility. By using the Kerr spacetime as an example, we construct from the Riemann curvature tensor a vector field, which behaves just like the speculated fluid flow.
We first calculate equations of motion for particles in the Kerr-Sen-de Sitter black hole spacetime. Then in the eikonal regime, we analytically obtain the quasi-normal resonant modes of massless neutral scalar field perturbation and find its imaginary part to be characterized by the surface gravity of the near-extremal Kerr-Sen-de Sitter black hole with Cauchy horizon approaching the event horizon. We further show that the Penrose strong cosmic censorship conjecture is thus respected in this spacetime with dilaton scalar field and axion pseudoscalar field.
We study gravitational perturbations of the Kerr-AdS_5 x S^5 spacetime with equal angular momenta. In this spacetime, we found the two kinds of classical instabilities, superradiant and Gregory-Laflamme instabilities. The superradiant instability is caused by the wave amplification via superradiance, and by wave reflection due to the potential barrier of the AdS spacetime. The Gregory-Laflamme instability appears in Kaluza-Klein modes of the internal space S^5 and breaks the symmetry SO(6). Taken into account these instabilities, the phase structure of Kerr-AdS_5 x S^5 spacetime is revealed. T…
We present an exact solution describing a stationary and axisymmetric object with electromagnetic and dilaton fields. The solution generalizes the usual Kerr-Taub-NUT (Newman-Unti-Tamburino) spacetime in general relativity and is obtained by boosting this spacetime in the fifth dimension and performing a Kaluza-Klein reduction to four dimensions. We also discuss the physical parameters of this solution and calculate its gyromagnetic ratio.
We use zero angular momentum null geodesics in the Kerr-de Sitter spacetime to transform the metric in a generalised Bondi coordinate system. We write the metric components explicitly. Next, we choose the radial coordinate to be the areal coordinate and write the asymptotic metric in the Bondi-Sachs gauge.
We consider Kerr-de Sitter spacetimes and evaluate their mass, angular momentum and entropy according to the boundary counterterm prescription. We provide a physicall interpretation for angular velocity and angular momentum at future/past infinity. We show that the entropy of the four-dimensional Kerr-de Sitter spacetimes is less than of pure de Sitter spacetime in agreement to the entropic N-bound. Moreover, we show that maximal mass conjecture which states any asymptotically de Sitter spacetime with mass greater than de Sitter has a cosmological singularity is respected by asymptotically de …
We study a class of limits of the higher-dimensional Kerr-NUT-(A)dS spacetimes where particular roots of metric functions degenerate. Namely, we obtain the Taub-NUT-(A)dS and the extreme near-horizon geometries as two examples of our limiting procedure. The symmetries of the resulting spacetimes are enhanced which is manifested by the presence of supplementary Killing vectors and decomposition of Killing tensors into Killing vectors.
By employing a pseudo-orthonormal coordinate-free approach, the Dirac equation for particles in the Kerr--Newman spacetime is separated into its radial and angular parts. In the massless case to which a special attention is given, the general Heun-type equations turn into their confluent form. We show how one recovers some results previously obtained in literature, by other means.
We present a new solution in Einstein-Maxwell theory which can be considered as the magnetized version of Kerr-Taub-NUT solution. Some properties of the spacetime are discussed. We also compute the entropy of extremal black hole in the spacetime by using the Kerr/CFT correspondence approach.
We study the Hawking thermal spectrum in dragging coordinate system and the tunneling radiation characteristics of hot NUT-Kerr-Newman-Kasuya spacetime. The tunneling rates at the event and cosmological horizon are found to be related to the change of Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. The radiation spectrum is not pure thermal and thus there is a correction to the Hawking thermal spectrum.
We show how to compute the mass of a Kerr-anti-de Sitter spacetime with respect to the anti-de Sitter background in any dimension, using a superpotential which has been derived from standard Noether identities. The calculation takes no account of the source of the curvature and confirms results obtained for black holes via the first law of thermodynamics.
We study the collision of two particles with the different rest masses moving in the equatorial plane of a Kerr-Taub-NUT spacetime and get the center-of-mass (CM) energy for the particles. We find that the CM energy depends not only on the rotation parameter, $a$, but also on the NUT charge of the Kerr-Taub-NUT spacetime, $n$. Especially, for the extremal Kerr-Taub-NUT spacetime, an unlimited CM energy can be approached if the parameter $a$ is in the range $[1,\sqrt{2}]$, which is different from that of the Kerr and Kerr-Newman black holes.
We study fixed points of isometries of the higher-dimensional Kerr-NUT-(A)dS spacetimes that form generalizations of symmetry axes. It turns out that, in the presence of nonzero NUT charges, some parts of the symmetry axes are necessarily singular and their intersections are surrounded by regions with closed timelike curves. Motivated by similarities with the spacetime of a spinning cosmic string, we introduce geometric quantities that characterize various types of singularities on symmetry axes. Expanding the Kerr-NUT-(A)dS spacetimes around candidates for possible fixed points, we find the K…
We compute the conserved charges for Kerr anti-de Sitter spacetimes in various dimensions using the conformal and the counterterm prescriptions. We show that the conserved charge corresponding to the global timelike killing vector computed by the two methods differ by a constant dependent on the rotation parameter and cosmological constant in odd spacetime dimensions, whereas the charge corresponding to the rotational killing vector is the same in either approach. We comment on possible implications of our results to the AdS/CFT correspondence.
We find an explicit solution of the source free Maxwell equations in a generalized Kerr-NUT-(A)dS spacetime in all dimensions. This solution is obtained as a linear combination of the closed conformal Killing-Yano tensor $h_{ab}$, which is present in such a spacetime, and a derivative of the primary Killing vector, associated with $h_{ab}$. For the vanishing cosmological constant the obtained solution reduces to the Wald's electromagnetic field generated from the primary Killing vector.
We compute the mass and angular momenta of rotating anti-de Sitter spacetimes in Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theory of gravity using a superpotential derived from standard Noether identities. The calculation relies on the fact that the Einstein and Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet vacuum equations are the same when linearized on maximally symmetric backgrounds and uses the recently discovered D-dimensional Kerr-anti-de Sitter solutions to Einstein's equations.
We extend the recent proposal of hidden conformal symmetry to the four-dimensional spacetimes with rotational parameter and NUT twist. We consider the wave equation of a massless scalar field in background of Kerr-Bolt spacetimes and show in the "near region", the wave equation can be reproduced by the $SL(2,R)_L \times SL(2,R)_R$ Casimir quadratic operators. Moreover, we compute the microscopic entropy of the dual CFT by Cardy formula and find a perfect match to Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of Kerr-Bolt spacetimes. The absorption cross section of a near region scalar field also matches to micro…
An attempt is made to supplement Carter's partial investigation of the global structure of Kerr-Newman spacetime on the symmetry axis. Namely, the global structure of θ= const. timelike submanifolds of Kerr-Newman metric starting from the symmetry axis all the way down to the equatorial plane are studied by introducing a new time coordinate slightly different from the usual Boyer-Lindquist time coordinate. It turns out that the maximal anaytic extension of θ= θ_0 (0 \leq θ_0 < π/2) submanifolds is the same as that of the symmetry axis first studied by Carter whereas θ= π/2 equatorial plane has…
We study Killing horizons and their neighbourhoods in the Kerr-NUT-(anti-)de Sitter and the accelerated Kerr-NUT-(anti-)de Sitter spacetimes. The geometries of the horizons have an irremovable singularity at one of the poles, unless the parameters characterising the spacetimes satisfy the constraint we derive and solve in the current paper. In the Kerr-NUT-de Sitter case, the constraint relates the cosmological constant of spacetime and the horizon area, leaving 3 parameters free. In the accelerated case the acceleration becomes a 4th parameter that allows the cosmological constant to take arb…
We construct the light escape cones of isotropic spot sources of radiation residing in special classes of reference frames in the Kerr-de Sitter (KdS) black hole spacetimes, namely, in the fundamental class of 'non-geodesic' locally non-rotating reference frames (LNRFs), and two classes of 'geodesic' frames, the radial geodesic frames (RGFs), both falling and escaping, and the frames related to the circular geodesic orbits (CGFs). We compare the cones constructed in a given position for the LNRFs, RGFs, and CGFs. We have shown that the photons locally counter-rotating relative to LNRFs with po…
Accurately modeling astrophysical extreme-mass-ratio-insprials requires calculating the gravitational self-force for orbits in Kerr spacetime. The necessary calculation techniques are typically very complex and, consequently, toy scalar-field models are often developed in order to establish a particular calculational approach. To that end, I present a calculation of the scalar-field self-force for a particle moving on a (fixed) inclined circular geodesic of a background Kerr black hole. I make the calculation in the frequency-domain and demonstrate how to apply the mode-sum regularization proc…
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 perform a detailed analysis of the properties of stationary observers located on the equatorial plane of the ergosphere in a Kerr spacetime, including light-surfaces. This study highlights crucial differences between black hole and the super-spinner sources. In the case of Kerr naked singularities, the results allow us to distinguish between "weak" and "strong" singularities, corresponding to spin values close to or distant from the limiting case of extreme black holes, respectively. We derive important limiting angular frequencies for naked singularities. We especially study very weak sing…
It is well known that 4-dimensional Kerr-NUT-AdS spacetime possesses the hidden symmetry associated with the Killing-Yano tensor. This tensor is "universal" in the sense that there exist coordinates where it does not depend on any of the free parameters of the metric. Recently the general higher dimensional Kerr-NUT-AdS solutions of the Einstein equations were obtained. We demonstrate that all these metrics with arbitrary rotation and NUT parameters admit a universal Killing-Yano tensor. We give an explicit presentation of the Killing-Yano and Killing tensors and briefly discuss their properti…
Gravitational waves from the explosive merger of distant black holes are encoded with details regarding the complex extreme-gravity spacetime present at their source. Famously described by the Kerr spacetime metric for rotating black holes in general relativity, what if effects beyond this theory are present? One way to efficiently test this hypothesis is to first obtain a metric which parametrically deviates from the Kerr metric in a model-independent way. Given such a metric, one can then predict the ensuing corrections to both the inspiral and ringdown portions of the gravitational waveform…
We consider the quasilocal thermodynamics of rotating black holes in asymptotically flat and asymptotically anti de Sitter spacetimes. Using the minimal number of intrinsic boundary counterterms inspired by the AdS/CFT correspondence, we find that we are able to carry out an analysis of the thermodynamics of these black holes for virtually all possible values of the rotation parameter and cosmological constant that leave the quasilocal boundary well-defined, going well beyond what is possible with background subtraction methods. Specifically, we compute the quasilocal energy $E$ and angular mo…
We investigate the propagation of light through a plasma on a background Kerr spacetime via a Hamiltonian formulation. The behaviour of light when propagating through a vacuum and through a plasma is not the same; the convolution of gravitational and plasma effects gives rise to a dispersion in both space and time. The magnitude of the dispersion is a strong function of both the ray frequency and impact parameter. We discuss implications for the detection of gravitationally bent pulsar beams near the Galactic centre.
An exact expression derived in the literature for the rate of dragging of inertial frames (Lense-Thirring (LT) precession) in a general stationary spacetime, is reviewed. The exact LT precession frequencies for Kerr, Kerr-Taub-NUT and Taub-NUT spacetimes are explicitly derived. Remarkably, in the case of the zero angular momentum Taub-NUT spacetime, the frame-dragging effect is shown {\it not} to vanish, when considered for spinning test gyroscopes. The result becomes sharper for the case of vanishing ADM mass of that spacetime. We clarify how our results are consistent with claims in the rece…
Deriving the gravitational field of the high-energy objects is an important theme because the black holes might be produced in particle collisions in the brane world scenario. In this paper, we develop a method for boosting the metric of the stationary objects and taking the lightlike limit in higher-dimensional spacetimes, using the Kerr black hole as one example. We analytically construct the metric of lightlike Kerr black holes and find that this method contains no ambiguity in contrast to the four-dimensional case. We discuss the possible implications of our results in the brane world cont…
We construct a model of a rotating wormhole made by cutting and pasting two Kerr spacetimes. As a result, we obtain a rotating thin-shell wormhole with exotic matter at the throat. Two candidates for the exotic matter are considered: (i) a perfect fluid; (ii) an anisotropic fluid. We show that a perfect fluid is unable to support a rotating thin-shall wormhole. On the contrary, the anisotropic fluid with the negative energy density can be a source for such a geometry.
