Warped Symmetries of the Kerr Black Hole

TL;DR

This paper identifies a new set of horizon diffeomorphisms for Kerr black holes, revealing a warped conformal symmetry that helps explain their thermodynamic properties.

Contribution

It introduces a novel choice of vector fields near the horizon, organizing gravitational charges into a warped CFT algebra, advancing understanding of black hole symmetries.

Findings

Virasoro-Kac-Moody algebra with non-trivial central extensions

Warped CFT description captures Kerr black hole thermodynamics

New horizon diffeomorphisms extend previous symmetry analyses

Abstract

We propose a set of diffeomorphism that act non-trivially near the horizon of the Kerr black hole. We follow the recent developments of Haco-Hawking-Perry-Strominger to quantify this phase space, with the most substantial difference being our choice of vectors fields. Our gravitational charges are organized into a Virasoro-Kac-Moody algebra with non-trivial central extensions. We interpret this algebra as arising from a warped conformal field theory. Using the data we can infer from this warped CFT description, we capture the thermodynamic properties of the Kerr black hole.