A Black Hole Levitron

TL;DR

This paper explores stabilizing extremal black holes in external electromagnetic fields, demonstrating a supergravity model where black holes can be levitated and trapped, resembling a mechanical Levitron.

Contribution

It introduces a supergravity framework for trapping black holes using external fields, extending multi-center solutions to a continuum limit for stable levitation.

Findings

Black holes can be stabilized in external fields within supergravity models.

A continuum limit of multi-center solutions enables black hole trapping.

The setup resembles a mechanical Levitron, offering new insights into black hole manipulation.

Abstract

We study the problem of spatially stabilising four dimensional extremal black holes in background electric/magnetic fields. Whilst looking for stationary stable solutions describing black holes kept in external fields we find that taking a continuum limit of Denef et al's multi-center solutions provides a supergravity description of such backgrounds within which a black hole can be trapped in a given volume. This is realised by levitating a black hole over a magnetic dipole base. We comment on how such a construction resembles a mechanical Levitron.