Black holes with nontrivial gauge fields play an important role in string theory, not least because the types
of charge that they carry help identify their microscopic constituents (e.g., branes). In this
section we shall review briefly such solutions for . We shall concentrate exclusively on
solutions of maximal supergravity theories arising as consistent toroidal reductions of
supergravity.
The bosonic sector of maximal supergravity theories contains massless scalars taking values in some
coset space where
is noncompact and
is compact. Since the scalars are massless, their
asymptotic values (for an asymptotically-flat solution) are arbitrary, i.e., they are moduli.
is a global
symmetry of the supergravity theory (broken to a discrete U-duality symmetry in string/M-theory). By
acting with
we can choose the moduli to be anything convenient. Given a particular choice
for the moduli, the global symmetry group is broken to
. See, e.g., [210] for a review of
this.
The only type of conserved gauge charge that an asymptotically flat solution can carry is electric charge
with respect to a 2-form field strength (or magnetic charge with respect to a form field strength,
but this can always be dualized into a 2-form). The group
acts nontrivially on the charges of a
solution. Hence, the strategy in looking for black-hole solutions is to identify a “seed” solution with a small
number of parameters, from which a solution with the most general charge assignments can be
obtained by acting with
. For example, dimensional reduction of
supergravity on
gives the maximal
,
supergravity, which has 27 Abelian vectors and
42 scalars parameterizing the coset
. It turns out that the a solution with 27
independent charges can be obtained by acting with
on a seed solution with just 3
charges [58
].
The construction of stationary, charged, topologically-spherical, black-hole solutions (“charged
Myers–Perry”) in maximal supergravity theories was described in [58]. It turns out that the
seed solutions are the same as for toroidal compactifications of heterotic string theory. The
latter seed solutions were constructed in [63] for
and [64, 184] for
. In
addition to their mass and angular momenta, they are parameterized by three electric charges in
and two electric charges for
. For
(type IIA theory), the solution
describing a rotating black hole charged with respect to the Ramond-Ramond 2-form field
strength (i.e., D0-brane charge) can be obtained from the general rotating brane solution given
in [55
].
In the limit of vanishing angular momenta, all of these solutions reduce to generalizations of the
Reissner–Nordström solution. This static case is the only case for which linearized stability has
been investigated. The spherical symmetry of static solutions permits a scalar/vector/tensor
decomposition of perturbations. For Reissner–Nordström solutions of
Einstein–Maxwell theory,
decoupled equations governing each type have been obtained [164
]. These have been used to prove
analytically the stability of tensor and vector perturbations for
and scalar perturbations for
[164
]. Numerical studies have revealed that scalar perturbations are also stable for
[169].
Black holes saturating a Bogomolnyi-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS) inequality play an important role in string theory. The canonical example is the first black-hole entropy calculation [229], in which the BPS condition provided the justification for relating the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of a classical black-hole solution to the statistical entropy of a microscopic brane configuration.
The only known asymptotically-flat BPS black-hole solutions occur for . For
, one can
obtain BPS black-hole solutions as a limit of the nonextremal charged rotating solutions just discussed.
Starting from the six-parameter seed solution of [63] one can obtain a four-parameter BPS black hole: the
BMPV black hole [17, 242]. The solution has equal angular momenta
and the four
parameters are
and the three electric charges. The mass is fixed by the BPS relation. Note that one
loses two parameters in the BPS limit; this is because the BPS limit and the extremal limit are distinct for
rotating black holes - a BPS black hole is necessarily extremal, but the converse is untrue. As for the
Myers–Perry solution, the equality of the angular momenta gives rise to a non-Abelian isometry group
. Classical properties of the BMPV solution have been discussed in detail
in [102
, 106].
Black holes can only carry electric charge with respect to a two-form. However, higher-rank -forms may
also be excited by a black hole, even though there is no net charge associated with them. This occurs
naturally for black rings. Consider a black string in
dimensions. A string carries electric
charge associated with a three-form field strength
. The electric charge is proportional to the
integral of
over a
-sphere that links the string. Now consider a black ring with
topology
formed by bending the string into a loop and giving it angular momentum
around the
. This would be asymptotically flat and, hence, the charge associated with
would be zero. Nevertheless,
would be nonzero. Its strength can be measured by the
flux of
through a
linking the ring, which is no longer a conserved quantity but
rather a nonconserved electric dipole. Such a ring would have three parameters, but would only
have two conserved charges (mass and angular momentum), hence it would exhibit continuous
nonuniqueness.
Exact solutions describing such “dipole rings” have been constructed in [79
]. In
,
one can dualize a 3-form
to a two-form, so these solutions carry magnetic dipoles with
respect to two-form field strengths. The dipole rings of [79
] are solutions of
,
supergravity coupled to two vector multiplets, which is a theory with
gauge group that can be
obtained by consistent truncation of the maximal
supergravity theory. These rings are
characterized by their mass
, angular momentum
around the
of the horizon, and three
dipoles
. The angular momentum
on the
of the horizon vanishes. They have the
same
symmetry as vacuum black rings. These solutions are seed solutions for the
construction of solutions of maximal
supergravity with 27 independent dipoles obtained by
acting with
as described above. One would expect the existence of more general
dipole-ring solutions with two independent nonzero angular momenta, but these are yet to be
discovered.
Black rings can also carry conserved electric charges with respect to a 2-form field strength (the first regular
example was found in [70], which can be regarded as having two charges and one dipole in a
supergravity theory; see also [71
]). Hence there is the possibility that they can saturate a
BPS inequality. The first example of a supersymmetric black-ring solution was obtained for
minimal
supergravity in [74
] using a canonical form for supersymmetric solutions of this
theory [101
]. This was then generalized to a supersymmetric black-ring solution of the
supergravity in [12, 75, 100
]. The latter solution has 7 independent parameters, which can
be taken to be the 3 charges, 3 dipoles and
. The mass is fixed by the BPS relation and
is determined by the charges and dipoles. See [84] for more detailed discussion of these
solutions.
The most general, stationary, black-ring solution of the supergravity theory is expected to have
nine parameters, since one would expect the three charges, three dipoles, two angular momenta and the
mass to be independent. This solution has not yet been constructed. Note that the general non-BPS
solution should have two more parameters than the general BPS solution, just as for topologically-spherical
rotating black holes. The most general, known, nonextremal solution [72
] has seven parameters, and was
obtained by applying solution-generating transformations to the dipole ring solutions of [79
]. This solution
does not have a regular BPS limit, and there is no limit in which it reduces to a vacuum black ring with two
angular momenta.
It has been argued that a nine parameter black-ring solution could not be a seed solution for the most
general black-ring solution of maximal supergravity [181
]. By acting with
, one can
construct a solution with 27 independent charges from a seed with 3 independent charges or one can
construct a solution with 27 independent dipoles from a seed with three independent dipoles. However, one
cannot do both at once. If one wants to construct a solution with 27 independent charges and 27
independent dipoles from a seed solution with three independent charges, then this seed must have 15
independent dipoles, and hence (including the mass and angular momenta) 21 parameters in total. The seed
solution for the most general supersymmetric black ring in maximal
supergravity is expected to
have 19 parameters [181].
[16] develops solution-generating techniques in minimal supergravity, based on U-duality properties
of the latter. By applying one such transformation to the neutral doubly-spinning black ring of
Section 5.1.2, they obtain a new charged ring solution of five-dimensional supergravity. However, this
solution suffers from the same problem of Dirac–Misner singularities that [71
] described when a neutral
single-spin ring seed is used. It appears that the problem could be solved, like in [72], by including
an additional parameter that is then tuned to cancel the pathologies. It also seems possible
that, like in [71], the neutral doubly-spinning black ring is a good seed for black rings with
two charges, one dipole, and two independent angular momenta in the
supergravity
theory.
Besides the solution-generating techniques based on string theory and supergravity (sequences of boosts
and dualities) there have been a number of analyses of the Einstein–Maxwell(-dilaton) equations
leading to other techniques for generating stationary solutions. [146] studies general properties
of the Einstein–Maxwell equations in -dimensions with
commuting Killing-vector
fields. [233] shows how four-dimensional, vacuum, stationary, axisymmetric solutions can be
used to obtain static, axisymmetric solutions of five-dimensional dilaton gravity coupled to
a two-form gauge field. Also, within the class of five-dimensional stationary solutions of the
Einstein–Maxwell(-dilaton) equations with two rotational symmetries, solution-generating techniques
have been developed in [175] and [251, 253]. Note that many of these papers do not take into
account the Chern–Simons term present in
supergravity. This term is relevant when both
electric and magnetic components of the gauge field are present. Thus, it can be ignored for
electrically-charged static solutions, which do not give rise to magnetic dipoles. It does not play a
role, either, for the dipole rings of [79
], which has allowed a systematic derivation of these
solutions [252, 254].
The inclusion of electric charge makes it considerably easier to construct multiple-black-hole solutions than
in the vacuum case discussed above. In , there exist well-known static solutions describing multiple
extremal Reissner–Nordström black holes held in equilibrium by a cancellation of electric repulsion and
gravitational attraction [131
]. Similar static solutions can be constructed in
[198]. However,
although the
solutions have smooth horizons [131
], the
solutions have horizons of low
differentiability [246, 22].
In , multiple-black-hole solutions can be supersymmetric. Supersymmetry makes it easy to
write down stationary solutions corresponding to multiple BMPV black holes [102]. However, the
regularity of these solutions has not been investigated. Presumably they are no smoother than the
static solutions just mentioned. Although electromagnetic and gravitational forces cancel, one
might expect spin-spin interactions to play a role in these solutions, perhaps leading to even
lower smoothness, unless the spins are aligned. Note that, in general, superposition of these
black holes breaks all symmetries of a single central BMPV solution except for time-translation
invariance.
Supersymmetric solutions describing stationary superpositions of multiple concentric black rings have also been constructed [99, 100]. The rings have a common center, and can either lie in the same plane, or in orthogonal planes. The superposition does not break any symmetries. This may be the reason that these solutions have smooth horizons.
Turning to nonextremal solutions, one would certainly expect generalizations of the solutions of section 5.3 with nontrivial gauge fields. A solution describing a Myers–Perry black hole with a concentric dipole ring is presented in [255].
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