World-Volume Effective Theory for Higher-Dimensional Black Holes

TL;DR

This paper develops a worldvolume effective theory for higher-dimensional black holes, modeling them as blackfolds to understand their complex horizon geometries and dynamics at large scales.

Contribution

It introduces a long-distance effective theory treating higher-dimensional black holes as blackfolds, enabling analysis of their novel horizon structures and behaviors.

Findings

Black holes can have horizons with two characteristic length scales.

The blackfold approach captures complex horizon geometries and topologies.

Provides a new framework for understanding higher-dimensional black hole dynamics.

Abstract

We argue that the main feature behind novel properties of higher-dimensional black holes, compared to four-dimensional ones, is that their horizons can have two characteristic lengths of very different size. We develop a long-distance worldvolume effective theory that captures the black hole dynamics at scales much larger than the short scale. In this limit the black hole is regarded as a blackfold: a black brane (possibly boosted locally) whose worldvolume spans a curved submanifold of the spacetime. This approach reveals black objects with novel horizon geometries and topologies more complex than the black ring, but more generally it provides a new organizing framework for the dynamics of higher-dimensional black holes.