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# Probing the dispersive and spatial properties of planar photonic crystal waveguide modes via highly efficient coupling from optical fiber tapers

## Abstract

The demonstration of an optical fiber based probe for efficiently exciting the waveguide modes of high-index contrast planar photonic crystal (PC) slabs is presented. Utilizing the dispersion of the PC, fiber taper waveguides formed from standard silica single-mode optical fibers are used to evanescently couple light into the guided modes of a patterned silicon membrane. A coupling efficiency of approximately $`95\%`$ is obtained between the fiber taper and a PC waveguide mode suitably designed for integration with a previously studied ultra-small mode volume high-Q PC resonant cavityref:Srinivasan3 . The micron-scale lateral extent and dispersion of the fiber taper is also used as a near-field spatial and spectral probe to study the profile and dispersion of PC waveguide modes. The mode selectivity of this wafer-scale probing technique, together with its high efficiency, suggests that it will be useful in future quantum and non-linear optics experiments employing planar PCs.

Photonic crystals (PCs), formed by periodically modulating the refractive index of a bulk host material, have attracted great interest in recent years owing to the control they provide of the spatial and dispersive properties of light within themref:Yablonovitch . Two examples of PC structures which employ this control to significantly modify the optical properties of their host material are waveguidesref:Johnson4 ; ref:Loncar2  and defect cavitiesref:Painter3 . PC waveguides can be designed to exploit modified group velocityref:Notomi2 , increased field intensity, and so-called “generalized phase-matching”ref:Cowan1  to enhance optical nonlinear behavior. Point defects within PCs can in turn be used to form optical cavities which support localized resonances with simultaneously high-Q and small effective mode volume. Such resonant cavities formed in high-index contrast PC dielectric slabs are particularly interesting for future chip-based cavity QED experimentsref:Mabuchi  and for quantum optical sources such as triggered single photon emittersref:Michler ; ref:Santori , where the extremely large electric field strength per photon of the cavity mode can be used to strengthen the coherent coupling to an atomic or quantum dot effective two-level system or in the “bad cavity” limit to channel spontaneous emission more efficiently into the cavity moderef:Gerard2 .

While several initial applications of planar PCs have been demonstrated, such as extremely small lasersref:Painter3  and micro-optical add-drop filtersref:Noda2 , a significant barrier to further development of useful photonic crystal devices has been the difficulty in coupling light into and out of the PC. The small mode profiles, a result of the high refractive index of semiconductor materials from which high-index contrast PCs are typically created, and the complex optical phase within periodic structures make it difficult to use conventional coupling methods from optical fibers or free-space beamsref:Notomi . In this Letter we demonstrate that by using the dispersive properties inherent to planar PCs, one may evanescently couple light in an efficient manner from silica optical fiber tapersref:Bulmer ; ref:Knight ; ref:Spillane2  into a high-index contrast planar PC waveguideref:Obrien2 ; ref:Barclay2 ; ref:Barclay3 . As efficient coupling is obtained to a photonic crystal waveguide (PCWG) mode designed for integration with a recently demonstrated high-Q PC cavityref:Srinivasan3 , the combined fiber taper-PCWG-PC cavity system promises to provide efficient optical access to the ultra-small mode volumes of PC resonant cavities. In addition, by utilizing the micron-scale lateral size and dispersion of the tapered region of the fiber, this coupling technique is shown to be useful for mapping the bandstructure and spatial profile of PCWG modes.

The optical coupling scheme used in this work is shown schematically in Figure 1(a,b). An optical fiber taperref:Birks1 , formed by heating and stretching a standard single-mode silica fiber, is placed above and parallel to a PCWG. The fiber diameter changes continuously along the length of the fiber taper, reaching a minimum diameter on the order of the wavelength of light. Light that is initially launched into the core-guided fundamental mode of the optical fiber is adiabatically converted in the taper region of the fiber into the fundamental air-guided mode, allowing the evanescent tail of the optical field to interact with the PCWG; coupling occurs to *phase-matched* PCWG modes which share a similar momentum component down the waveguide at the frequency of interest. In order to probe the planar PC chip, the fiber taper is mounted in a “u”-shaped configuration such that it forms an approximately 10 mm straight segment at its midsection (Fig. 1(a)). The mounted fiber taper is then placed on a vertical axis stage driven by a DC motor with 50 nm encoder resolution, allowing the taper to be accurately positioned at varying heights above individual PCWG devices (Fig. 1(b,c)). The overall insertion loss in the mounted fiber tapers used here was less than $`10\%`$ (more controlled formation of fiber tapers has shown that insertion loss of $`<0.1`$ dB is possible ref:Birks1 ).

The PCWGs studied here were formed on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer, with a $`340`$ nm thick silicon (Si) waveguiding layer on top of a silicon dioxide (SiO2) underclad layer of $`2`$ $`\mu `$m. Fabrication of the PCWG consisted of electron-beam lithography to pattern an e-beam resist mask, a sulfur hexafluoride reactive ion etch (ICP-RIE) to transfer the PCWG lattice of air holes through the Si waveguiding layer, and a final hydrofluoric acid wet etch to selectively remove the underlying SiO2 layer, freeing the Si waveguiding layer and creating a free-standing membrane (Fig. 1(c)). A linear array of waveguides was formed on the Si chip, each waveguide of length $`200`$ lattice constants ($`100`$ $`\mu `$m) with different lattice spacings and nominal hole radius (filling fraction). An additional isolation etch, a few microns in depth, was performed to remove material surrounding the linear array of PCWGs (Fig. 1(c)). Along with the curvature of the fiber taper loop, this ensured that the fiber taper mode would only evanescently interact with the PCWG region.

Although the evanesent coupling scheme is not specific to a given defect geometry or lattice, the waveguide in this work was chosen to consist of a linear defect along the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-$`X`$ direction of a compressed square lattice, formed by introducing a lateral grade in the hole radius (Figs. 1(c-e)). The choice of grading and lattice compression was motivated by previous work studying the design and integration of waveguides and ultra-small mode volume, high-Q resonant cavities. This type of PC waveguide supports a mode (the TE-1 mode described below) which has a transverse overlap factor of greater than $`98\%`$ with that of the high-Q resonant cavity studied in Ref. ref:Srinivasan3 , and initial finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations of the coupled waveguide-cavity system indicate that efficient loading of the high-Q cavity can be obtainedref:Barclay2 . Figure 1(f) shows an approximate bandstructure of TE-like (electric field predominantly in the plane of the slab) modesref:note\_odd\_even\_modes  of the host compressed square lattice PC slab whose dominant Fourier components are in the direction of the waveguide, and which will consequently couple most strongly with the fundamental fiber taper moderef:Barclay2 . Superimposed upon this bandstructure are the important *donor*-type defect waveguide modes: (i) a defect mode with negative group velocity which comes off of the conduction band edge (labelled TE-1), and (ii) a defect mode with positive group velocity which comes off of a second order (in the vertical direction) valence band-edge (labelled TE-2). A typical fiber taper dispersion curve is also shown, lying between the air and silica light lines.

In Figure 2(a-b), three-dimensional (3D) FDTD simulations were used to accurately calculate the PCWG bandstructure in the regions where phase-matching to the fiber taper mode occurs. The FDTD-calculated in-plane magnetic field profiles of the TE-1 and TE-2 PCWG modes (taken in the mid-plane of the dielectric slab) near their respective phase-matching points are shown in Fig. 1(d-e). Although one can couple to either of the TE-1 or TE-2 modesref:Barclay3 , the TE-1 mode is of primary interest here because of its fundamental nature in the vertical direction and its similar properties to that of the high-Q cavity mode of Ref. ref:Srinivasan3 . Furthermore, coupling to the TE-1 mode is of greater general interest since its phase matching with the silica taper is mediated by the dispersion of the PC, unlike the TE-2 mode which phase matches thanks to its higher order nature in the vertical direction, a mechanism not unique to periodic structures. The physical scale of the longitudinal ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\text{z}`$) and transverse ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\text{x}`$) lattice constants of the PCWG are determined by the phase-matching requirement between the desired TE-1 PCWG mode and the fundamental fiber taper mode, which from the 3D FDTD bandstructure occurs for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\text{z}=500\text{nm}`$ ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\text{x}=0.8\mathrm{\Lambda }_\text{z}=400\text{nm}`$) near the operating wavelength of $`1600`$ nm.

In order to probe the bandstructure of the PCWG a scanning external cavity laser with a $`1565`$-$`1625`$ nm wavelength range was connected to the fiber taper input. The transmitted power through the fiber taper section and the back-reflected power into the fiber from the taper-PCWG coupling section were both monitored. By varying the position along the fiber taper of the interaction region between the PCWG and taper (as measured by $`l_\text{c}`$, the distance from the fiber taper diameter minimum), the diameter ($`d`$) of the fiber taper, and hence the propagation constant ($`\beta `$) of the fiber taper mode interacting with the PCWG mode, could be tuned. Tuning from just below the air light-line ($`d=0.6`$ $`\mu `$m, $`n_{\text{eff}}=\beta c/\omega 1.05`$), to just above the silica light-line ($`d=4.0`$ $`\mu `$m, $`n_{\text{eff}}1.40`$) was possible. Figure 2(c) shows the taper transmission as a function of wavelength and sample position ($`l_\text{c}`$) when the taper is centered above the PCWG at a height $`g700`$ nm from the PCWG surface. Resonances corresponding to both the TE-1 counter- and TE-2 co-propagating modes can be identified. SEM measurements of the taper diameter as a function of position ($`l_\text{c}`$) were used to calculate the propagation constant of each resonance, allowing the PCWG modes’ dispersion to be plotted (Fig. 2(e)). The measured bandstructure is in close agreement with the FDTD calculated dispersion of Fig. 2(a), replicating both the negative group velocity of the TE-1 mode and the anti-crossing behaviour of the odd vertical parity TE-2 and TM-1 modes. Figures 2(d,f) show analogous data obtained by probing the sample after the Si slab thickness $`t_g`$ has been thinned to better isolate the TE-1 mode in $`\omega \beta `$ space. As predicted by the FDTD simulation (Fig. 2(b)), the TE-1 mode is seen to shift slightly higher in frequency due to the sample thinning whereas the higher-order TE-2 mode shifts more quickly with slab thickness and is effectively “frozen” out of the laser scan range.

The dependence of the guided wave coupling on coupling strength and the overall efficiency of the coupling process were studied by varying the gap between the fiber taper and PCWG. Figure 3(a) shows the transmission through the fiber taper, with the coupling region occurring at a taper diameter of $`d=1.9`$ $`\mu \text{m}`$, for varying taper heights above the thinned PCWGref:taper\_height\_note . Figure 3(b) shows the same measurement, but with the coupling region occurring at a taper diameter of $`d=1.0`$ $`\mu \text{m}`$ and for a PCWG with slightly smaller nominal hole size. In both cases, the central resonance feature occurring around $`\lambda =1600`$ nm is the coupling to the TE-1 mode of the PCWG. In the $`d=1.9`$ $`\mu \text{m}`$ case the minimum transmission ($`T_{\text{min}}`$) drops below $`1\%`$ at the phase matching wavelength of $`1602`$ nm, and recovers to close to unity off resonance. The taper-PCWG gap ($`g`$) dependence of $`T_{\text{min}}`$ shown in Figure 3(c) has the hyperbolic functional form $`\mathrm{tanh}^2(\kappa _{}L_\text{c})`$ characteristic of contra-directional couplingref:Yeh2  for a coupling strength ($`\kappa _{}L_\text{c}`$) which depends exponentially on $`g`$ (Fig. 3(c) inset). The degree of ideality of this coupling scheme ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$) can be estimated by subtracting the off-resonance scattering loss (the scattering loss is expected to be broadband) from $`1T_{\text{min}}`$, and is plotted as a function of $`g`$ in Fig. 3(c) (green triangles). The maximum $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ occurs at a gap height of $`g=250`$ nm and is $`>95\%`$ in this case. This near unity coupling efficiency was further confirmed by studying the back-reflected power in the fiber taper. The back-reflected power ($`R`$) results from input power that is coupled into the PCWG, reflected by the waveguide termination (in this case an abrupt end to the PC lattice of holes), and coupled back into the backward propagating fiber taper mode. The maximum in the back-reflected power was measured to be $`R_{\text{max}}=15\%`$ of the input power at the phase-matched wavelength where $`T_{\text{min}}<1\%`$, and an estimate of the TE-1 modal reflectivity ($`r^2`$) from the Fabry-Perot fringes within the transmission spectra of Figs. 3(a-b) is $`1020\%`$. These measurements are consistent with the near unity taper-PCWG coupling measured from the taper transmission as they imply $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\sqrt{R_{\text{max}}/r^2}>0.87`$.

As illustrated by the difference in the transmission curves of Fig. 3(a) and 3(b), the coupler bandwidth is a strong function of $`l_\text{c}`$, with a bandwidth of $`20`$ nm for coupling with small diameter taper regions ($`d1.0`$ $`\mu `$m) and a bandwidth of less than $`10`$ nm for coupling to regions of large taper diameter ($`d1.9`$ $`\mu `$m). This effect has two main contributions: the variation of the TE-1 PCWG mode group velocity at different points in the bandstructure ($`n_\text{g}=c\delta \beta /\delta \omega 4`$ \- $`6`$), and the variation in the taper diameter along the length of the 100 $`\mu `$m PCWG. As the propagation constant of the fundamental mode in the nominally $`1.9`$ $`\mu `$m diameter taper region varies less with changes in fiber diameter ($`\delta \beta /\delta d0.084\omega /c`$ $`\mu \text{m}^1`$) compared to the nominally $`1.0`$ $`\mu `$m diameter taper region ($`\delta \beta /\delta d0.36\omega /c`$ $`\mu \text{m}^1`$), the coupling bandwidth is increased for smaller tapers.

In addition to probing the bandstructure of the PCWG modes, the micron-scale lateral extent of the fiber taper may also be used as a near-field probe of the localized nature of the PCWG modes. Fig. 3(d) shows the coupling dependence of the TE-1 PCWG mode as a function of lateral displacement of the taper from the center of the PCWG ($`\mathrm{\Delta }x`$). The full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of $`1T_{\text{min}}`$ versus $`\mathrm{\Delta }x`$ (for $`1.0`$ $`\mu `$m diameter taper coupling region) was measured to be $`1.84`$ $`\mu `$m, in close agreement with the value ($`2.08`$ $`\mu `$m) obtained using a simple coupled mode theoryref:Barclay2  incorporating the fields of the FDTD calculated TE-1 mode and the analytically determined fiber mode. Further evidence of the local nature of the taper probe is given by the emergence of a second resonance at a wavelength of $`1575`$ nm when the taper is displaced laterally (see Fig. 3(a) inset). This corresponds to the odd (about $`\mathrm{\Delta }x=0`$) counterpart to the TE-1 mode, which is only excited by the even fundamental fiber mode if the waveguide mirror symmetry is broken, through fiber misalignment in this case.

To summarize, evanescent coupling from an optical fiber taper to a highly confined donor-type photonic crystal waveguide mode has been demonstrated with $`95\%`$ efficiency and over bandwidths as large as $`1.3\%`$ of the center wavelength ($`20`$ nm at $`1.6`$ $`\mu `$m wavelength). This coupling technique is not only extremely efficient, but allows for the rapid optical probing of the spatial and dispersive properties of photonic crystal devices throughout the two-dimensional plane of a micro-chip. It is envisioned that this preliminary demonstration of a wafer scale optical probe for high-index contrast PCs will open up further experimentation in such areas as cavity QED and novel photon sources where efficient injection and collection of light is paramount.

KS would like to thank the Hertz foundation and MB the Moore foundation for financial support.


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# Comment on “Measurement of quantum states of neutrons in the Earth’s gravitational field”

## I Introduction

A well known property of quantum mechanics is the quantization of the energy levels of a confined particle, e.g., one trapped in a potential well. For instance, the electromagnetic and the strong nuclear forces create different kinds of quantized structure in atoms and nuclei. This suggests that a splitting of the energy levels should also be observed for particles in the Earth’s gravitational field, but since the gravitational interaction is much weaker, the effect is subtle and hard to detect.

Recently *et al*. (2003), Nesvizhevsky et al., described an experiment where such quantum effects of gravity acting on ultra-cold neutrons (UCN) were claimed to have been observed. The results of the experiment were also previously summarized in *et al*. (2002). UCN were allowed to flow through a cavity with a reflecting surface below and an absorber above. By measuring the number of neutrons exiting the experimental setup, they claim to have observed discrete gravitational energy levels. They argue that the discrete data is related to the sudden increase of neutrons coming through at distinct widths between the reflecting surface and absorber. However, since the UCN are restricted by both the reflecting surface and the (non-ideal) absorber, also the geometric effect should be considered. The claimed result may even be explained by the use of geometrical arguments only.

## II The experiment

Here we give a brief review of the experiment reported in *et al*. (2003, 2002). A similar experiment was first suggested by V.I. Luschikov and A.I. Frank in 1978 Luschikov and Frank (1978).

The absorber and the “mirror” create a slit through which the neutrons pass, eventually reaching a detector at the end of the experimental setup. UCN are essential to the experiment due to their crucial properties. First and foremost they are electrically neutral, making them insensitive to “stray” electric fields which could easily mask all gravitational effects. They also have an energy of about $`10^7\mathrm{eV}`$, corresponding to a de Broglie wavelength of $``$500 Å or a (horizontal) velocity of $``$10 m/s, allowing them to undergo total reflection at all angles against a number of materials. The low energy also allows for high resolution, and since neutrons have a lifetime of the order of 900 s, it is possible to store them for periods of 100 s or more.

Nesvizhevsky et al., argue that when the neutrons are trapped in the potential formed by the mirror (an impenetrable “floor”) and the Earth’s effectively linear gravitational potential there will be a discrete set of possible energy levels, $`E_n`$, corresponding to the allowed eigenfunctions $`\psi _n`$. These are related through the time-independent Schrödinger equation, $`H\psi _n=E_n\psi _n`$, where $`H=p^2/2m+V`$, and $`V=mgz`$. For a theoretical treatment of this potential, see Flügge (1999). The four lowest theoretical energy eigenvalues are $`E_1=1.4\mathrm{peV}`$, $`E_2=2.5\mathrm{peV}`$, $`E_3=3.3\mathrm{peV}`$ and $`E_4=4.1\mathrm{peV}`$.

The ground state energy $`E_1`$ corresponds to a classical height, $`E_1=mgz`$, of about 15 $`\mu `$m. This leads the group to predict that when the slit-opening is less than this height no neutron transmission will occur. They argue that if the quantum mechanical wave function has a spatial extension larger than the opening, it will not “fit” without overlapping the absorber, and the neutrons have no chance of reaching the detector. In the experiment they observed a discrete increase in the number of detected neutrons as the slit opening was increased. In particular it was observed, as predicted, that when the slit-opening was less than $``$ 15 $`\mu `$m no neutrons reached the detector, and that there occurred a sudden increase after 15 $`\mu `$m.

## III Alternative explanations

A first thing to emphasize is that the energy eigenvalues themselves never were measured, i.e., all quoted energies are entirely theoretical. The only experimental data are the neutron counts $`N`$ at the detector, as a function of the mirror-absorber slit-width $`\mathrm{\Delta }h`$. The experimental statistics for discrete steps corresponding to excited quantum levels is insufficient *et al*. (2003, 2002). Hence, the authors claim only to conclusively have identified the quantized ground state (first step). There is thus no absolute need to recreate the quoted energy eigenvalues, as one only needs to explain the first jump in the number of detected neutrons. The data also show a good fit to a “translated” classical curve $`N(\mathrm{\Delta }hh_1)^{1.5}`$ (dotted curve in Fig. 5(c) of *et al*. (2003)) in which only the first discrete step is taken into account.

However, to show that it can be done, we choose as a first rough approximation a potential consisting of two infinite walls, i.e., a “neutron in an infinite box”. (The mirror can be seen as an “almost” infinite wall but the absorber is obviously poorly described by this.) The mirror introduces a non-gravitational “external” force to obtain the confining potential. This is very different from e.g., the Hydrogen atom where the “mirror” acting on the electron is internal, arising from electromagnetic interaction and quantum uncertainty only. The problem is trivial to solve analytically Flügge (1999); Gasiorowicz (1996), and the allowed energies are

$$E_n^{\mathrm{Box}}=\frac{\mathrm{}^2\pi ^2n^2}{2ma^2},$$
(1)
where $`a`$ is the box-width. Thus, the first energy eigenvalue of a neutron trapped in a box of width 15 $`\mu `$m is $`E_1^{\mathrm{Box}}=0.9\mathrm{peV}`$, of the same order of magnitude as the first energy eigenvalue of a neutron in the Earth’s gravitational field, $`E_1=1.4\mathrm{peV}`$. For more realistic potentials it is possible to reproduce the first energy level of $`E_1=1.4\mathrm{peV}`$ at an opening of 15 $`\mu `$m, explaining the “gravitational quantum energy state” as merely a normal geometric cavity-effect111If the transverse neutron temperature is $`20\mathrm{nK}`$ as stated in Schwarzschild (2002), corresponding to $`1\mathrm{peV}`$, even the simple infinite box potential can explain the first step. The smallest separation ($`a15\mu `$m) then corresponds to the high energy “tail” of the transverse neutron energy. Any free-falling neutrons with higher transverse energies, which could traverse narrower slits, are “filtered out” by the absorber arrangement, just as in the original argument *et al*. (2003, 2002).. A thorough investigation would necessitate a very exact and complicated modelling of the potential at the mirror and, especially, at the absorber.

However, as the final deciding factor in physics is experiment there is, at least in principle, a much simpler way to check this. Keeping everything else identical, turn the cavity from being horizontal to being vertical! If the effect is due to gravity it must then disappear as a potential well in the vertical direction no longer is present. If the effect is sustained in the vertical configuration it is solely due to the geometry of the cavity and the intrinsic properties of the neutron beam. (An even more ideal way would be to do the measurements in free-fall, but this seems virtually impossible to do in practice.) Nesvizhevsky et al., have controlled this by “reversing the geometry”, i.e., placing the absorber at the bottom instead of above. This control, however, is inconclusive. The absorber length is 13 cm, the mirror length is 10 cm. Outside the cavity formed between mirror and absorber the (unquantized) neutrons fall freely. Inside the cavity, even in the “reversed” case due to the fact that the absorber is non-ideal, there is a standing neutron-wave, meaning that the neutrons do not fall at all. When using the standard configuration the absorber is at the top, unable to absorb down-falling neutrons (outside the cavity). In the reversed configuration, however, there is a 3 cm “excess” of absorber outside, and below, the mirror, drastically reducing the neutron flux into the detector (as observed). Because of this, one can unfortunately not rule out a purely geometrical explanation of the measured effect, based on the performed tests.

## IV Conclusions and suggestions for improvements

Our conclusion is that a quantization of the gravitational ground state of a neutron has not been unambiguously identified. A “normal” cavity-effect can also explain the first discrete increase in the neutron count $`N`$, which is the only experimental result claimed to underlie the identification.

We therefore propose the following improvements of the experiment:

* Rotating the experimental setup by $`90^{}`$ keeping everything else, and especially the transverse neutron energies, constant. This gives a vertical instead of horizontal cavity. If the same result still occurs this would indicate that it is due only to the geometry of the experimental setup, as no gravitational quantum states can form in this case.
* Measuring where the neutrons strike the detector. This should be possible in principle, although not yet in practice. Since there is a standing neutron wave, the neutron is not falling in a classical sense, and the observed probability distribution should reflect $`|\psi |^2`$. This would directly discriminate between different theoretical explanations, as the linear gravitational potential gives a very distinct probability distribution, different from those arising from “cavity-potentials”. However, it would require moving the (improved) detector right up to the end of the cavity, with no “free” mirror surface as in the present setup. As this test is not currently possible, we instead propose that measurements should be made of $`N=N(x)`$ as a function of the cavity length, $`x`$, accordingly varied. When the neutron wave function penetrates the absorber, the neutron count in the detector should be $`Ne^{kx}`$, where $`k=k(\mathrm{\Delta }h)`$ is proportional to the fraction of $`|\psi |^2`$ inside the absorber222A constant absorption probability per unit length, $`dN=Nkdx`$, gives $`N=N_0e^{kx}`$.. In this way it should be possible to differentiate between theoretical explanations (gravitation/cavity potentials) of the neutron counts.

The experimental group will also try to measure transitions between different quantum states. We close by noting that if this actually is accomplished it would be the first (indirect) measurement of a graviton spectrum, analogous to normal electromagnetic photon spectra from atoms. As one-graviton exchange is overwhelmingly more likely than multi-graviton exchange (suppressed by powers of the very small gravitational coupling constant) the transition energy difference, $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$, will be carried away as a graviton with wavelength $`\lambda _{grav}=hc/\mathrm{\Delta }E10^6`$ m.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

General relativity in higher dimensions is an active area of ongoing studies in both string theory and particle theory. In particular, investigations over the past fifteen years have produced an impressive catalogue of black hole solutions for various effective theories of Einstein gravity coupled to many different kinds of matter fields . However, there have long been indications that the physics of event horizons in higher-dimensional general relativity is far richer and complex than in the standard four-dimensional theory.

A simple example illustrating this point is the theorem forbidding “topological hair” for four-dimensional black holes. That is, each connected component of a stationary event horizon must have the topology of a two-sphere . Of course, this result is easily evaded in higher dimensions. As an example, consider the four-dimensional Schwarzschild metric combined with a flat metric on $`𝐑^n`$. This space-time is an extended black “brane” solution of Einstein’s equations in 4+$`n`$ dimensions, and the topology of the horizon is $`S^2\times 𝐑^n`$. Recently, an even more dramatic violation was presented in ref. . There, an asymptotically flat solution was constructed describing a rotating black ring in five dimensions, with horizon topology $`S^2\times S^1`$. In fact for certain values of mass and spin, one finds that there exist three solutions, a black hole with an $`S^3`$ horizon and two different black rings with an $`S^2\times S^1`$ horizon. This is a clear indication that, unlike four dimensions, in higher dimensions black hole solutions will not be completely determined by a few asymptotic charges (such as the mass and angular momentum).

Further, in contrast to the stability proven for four-dimensional black holes , Gregory and Laflamme made the surprising discovery that the extended black branes appearing in higher dimensions are unstable . Ten years later, the question of the endpoint reached with the onset of this instability remains unresolved . However, this question lead to a conjecture that inhomogeneous black brane solutions may also exist . This recent conjecture produced a surge of activity in this area , including the discovery of, at least, a certain class of such solutions . Hence, while in four dimensions black hole solutions are extremely constrained by the uniqueness theorems, such results do not appear to apply for higher dimensions. Rather, it seems that we currently have only glimpses of a rich landscape of solutions with vast unexplored areas.

In this paper, we present a preliminary study of the stability of rotating black holes in higher dimensions. In particular, it was discovered over fifteen years ago that Einstein’s equations in higher dimensions have solutions describing black holes with an arbitrarily large angular momentum for a fixed mass . We refer to such solutions as “ultra-spinning” black holes. No such black holes arise in four-dimensional relativity where all solutions satisfy the famous Kerr bound, $`JGM^2`$. However, we will argue that the ultra-spinning black holes are in fact unstable and so an effective Kerr bound seems to arise in higher dimensions through a dynamical decay mechanism.

Since the analytic theory of the perturbations of higher-dimensional rotating black holes has not been fully developed yet, our approach is heuristic. We anticipate that our conclusions will be useful in guiding future research in the area. In particular, we have identified a limit (of infinite rotation) for these black holes where an instability is known to occur, and therefore it would make sense to focus on the subsector of the perturbations where these unstable modes are expected.

Another consequence of our study is an indication of the existence of new rotating black holes, of spherical topology, where the horizon is distorted by ripples along the polar direction in a way that preserves the same symmetries as the smoother black holes already known.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 reviews the metric for a rotating black hole in $`d`$ dimensions with one nonvanishing spin parameter. The focus of the following discussion will be $`d6`$. In section 3, we examine the geometry of the event horizon of this solution when the spin becomes large. We show that the horizon takes the shape of a (higher-dimensional) “pancake”, spreading out in the plane of rotation while becoming narrowly contracted in the other spatial directions. Section 4 presents a limit in which this black hole geometry becomes an unstable black membrane extending over the original plane of rotation. We argue that the instability appearing in this limit must also be relevant in the ultra-spinning regime. In section 5 we briefly comment on the thermodynamics of ultra-spinning black holes. Section 6 considers the possible decay of the ultra-spinning black hole by fragmentation into multiple black holes. Finally, we conclude in section 7 with a discussion of the implications of our result. While throughout the main text we focus on higher-dimensional black holes rotating in a single plane, this is only to simplify the presentation. In the appendix A, we demonstrate how an analogous black brane limit can be taken for black holes rotating in multiple planes and argue that hence instabilities will also arise in cases when several spin parameters become large simultaneously. Appendix B presents some calculations related to the possible decay of ultra-spinning black holes by the emission of gravitational radiation.

## 2 Ultra-spinning black holes

To begin our considerations of spinning black holes in higher dimensions, we recall the description of angular momentum in higher dimensions. In $`d`$ dimensions, the rotation group is $`SO(d1)`$ for which there are111We use the notation $`s`$ to denote the integer part of $`s`$. $`(d1)/2`$ distinct Casimirs which could be used to characterize the angular momentum of a system. More concretely, the latter is described by an angular momentum two-form. By going to the center-of-mass frame and then making a suitable rotation of the spatial coordinates, this two-form can be put in a block-diagonal form containing $`(d1)/2`$ parameters $`J_i`$. Each of the $`J_i`$ corresponds to the angular momentum associated with motion or rotation in distinct orthogonal (spatial) planes of the higher-dimensional spacetime.

Hence, a black hole in $`d`$ dimensions is in general characterized by $`(d1)/2`$ $`J_i`$, corresponding to spins in orthogonal planes. While in four dimensions this counting yields the usual single $`J`$, for $`d5`$ the general solution contains two or more spins. This prolonged review simply sets the stage for our statement that, throughout the following, we will focus our discussion to higher-dimensional black holes rotating in a single plane. (Further, for physical reasons that will become apparent below, the discussion will be restricted to $`d6`$.) However, we stress that this restriction is made only to simplify the presentation. In appendix A, we will extend the discussion to black holes with multiple spins and in particular we demonstrate how analogous instabilities can arise in this case.

Myers and Perry found general solutions describing asymptotically flat black holes in $`d`$ dimensions with all $`(d1)/2`$ $`J_i`$ nonvanishing . In the case with a single non-zero spin $`J_1=J0`$ (and $`J_{i>1}=0`$), the metric reduces to

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`dt^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\mu }{r^{d5}\rho ^2}}\left(dt+a\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\phi \right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\rho ^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}dr^2+\rho ^2d\theta ^2+(r^2+a^2)\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\phi ^2`$ (1)
$`+r^2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta d\mathrm{\Omega }_{(d4)}^2,`$
where

$$\rho ^2=r^2+a^2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta ,\mathrm{\Delta }=r^2+a^2\frac{\mu }{r^{d5}}.$$
(2)
The physical mass and angular momentum are related to the parameters $`\mu `$ and $`a`$ by

$$M=\frac{(d2)\mathrm{\Omega }_{d2}}{16\pi G}\mu ,J=\frac{2}{d2}Ma,$$
(3)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{d2}`$ is the area of a unit $`(d2)`$-sphere. Hence one can think of $`a`$ as essentially the angular momentum per unit mass.

The first line in eq. (1) looks very much like the metric of its four-dimensional counterpart, the Kerr solution, with the $`1/r`$ fall-off replaced, in appropriate places, by $`1/r^{d3}`$ — of course, with the choice $`d=4`$ this is precisely the Kerr metric. The second line contains the line element on a ($`d`$–4)-sphere which accounts for the additional spatial dimensions. Heuristically, we can see the competition between gravitational attraction and centrifugal repulsion by considering the expression

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{r^2}1=\frac{\mu }{r^{d3}}+\frac{a^2}{r^2}.$$
(4)
Roughly, the first term on the right-hand side corresponds to the attractive gravitational potential and falls off in a dimension-dependent fashion. In contrast, the repulsive centrifugal barrier described by the second term does not depend on the total number of dimensions, since rotations always refer to motions in a plane. As a consequence, the features of the event horizons will be strongly dimension-dependent.

The outer event horizon can be determined as the largest (real) root $`r_+`$ of $`g_{rr}^1=0`$ or simply $`\mathrm{\Delta }(r)=0`$. That is,

$$r_+^2+a^2\frac{\mu }{r_+^{d5}}=0.$$
(5)
For $`d=4`$, a regular horizon is present for values of the spin parameter $`a`$ up to the Kerr bound: $`a=\mu /2`$ (or $`a=GM`$), which corresponds to an extremal black hole with a single degenerate horizon (with vanishing surface gravity). Solutions with $`a>GM`$ correspond to naked singularities. In $`d=5`$, the situation is apparently quite similar since the real root at $`r_+=\sqrt{\mu a^2}`$ exists only up to the extremal limit $`\mu =a^2`$. However, this extremal solution has zero area, and in fact, it is a naked ring singularity. Note that the five-dimensional black ring of ref.  evades this bound. We return to a brief discussion of five dimensions in section 7.

For $`d6`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }(r)`$ is always positive at large values of $`r`$, but the term $`\mu /r^{d5}`$ makes it negative at small $`r`$. Therefore $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ always has a (single) positive real root independent of the value of $`a`$. Hence regular black hole solutions exist with arbitrarily large $`a`$, i.e., arbitrarily large angular momentum per unit mass. We refer to such solutions with large angular momentum per unit mass as “ultra-spinning” black holes. In the general situation with multiple spin parameters, an ultra-spinning black hole would be one for which any of $`a_i`$ satisfies $`a_i^{d3}>\mu `$. As will be discussed in appendix A, it is certainly possible to have a regular horizon where several of the spin parameters satisfy this inequality.

## 3 Geometry of ultra-spinning horizons

Now we consider the shape of the event horizon of an ultra-spinning black hole. To do so, we compare the sizes of invariant geometric quantities such as the proper areas of different sections of the horizon.

In the limit of very large $`a`$ and fixed mass, the coordinate radius of the horizon is well approximated by

$$r_+\left(\frac{\mu }{a^2}\right)^{1/(d5)}a.$$
(6)
Observe that $`r_+`$ shrinks as $`a`$ is increased keeping the mass fixed. However, $`r_+`$ by itself does not have any invariant meaning.

The total, $`(d2)`$-dimensional area of the horizon is

$$𝒜=\mathrm{\Omega }_{d2}r_+^{d4}(r_+^2+a^2)\mathrm{\Omega }_{d2}r_+^{d4}a^2\mathrm{\Omega }_{d2}\left(\frac{\mu ^{d4}}{a^2}\right)^{1/(d5)}.$$
(7)
Note that this area decreases as angular momentum increases with a fixed mass. This is also the case in $`d=4`$, but now for higher $`d`$ we can consider the limit $`a\mathrm{}`$ and we see that the area shrinks to zero in the limit.

Now consider the area of a two-dimensional section of the horizon obtained by considering the solution (1) at a fixed point in the “transverse” sphere $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{d4}`$. This “parallel” two-dimensional area is

$$𝒜_{}^{(2)}=\mathrm{\Omega }_2(r_+^2+a^2)\mathrm{\Omega }_2a^2.$$
(8)
This area grows for ultra-spinning black holes. Alternatively, one might fix the angles $`\theta `$ and $`\phi `$ to consider the area of the transverse sphere with the result

$$𝒜_{}^{(d4)}=\mathrm{\Omega }_{d4}(r_+\mathrm{cos}\theta )^{d4}.$$
(9)
These observations are easily compatible if we consider that the horizon has a characteristic size $`\mathrm{}_{}`$ in directions parallel to the rotation plane, and $`\mathrm{}_{}`$ in directions perpendicular to it. Then, if $`\mathrm{}_{}\mathrm{}_{}`$, we expect that

$`𝒜`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{}_{}^2\mathrm{}_{}^{d4}+\mathrm{}`$ (10)
$`𝒜_{}^{(2)}`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{}_{}^2+\mathrm{}`$
$`𝒜_{}^{(d4)}`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{}_{}^{d4}+\mathrm{}.`$
where the dots denote terms small in an expansion in $`\mathrm{}_{}/\mathrm{}_{}`$. Comparing with eqs. (7) to (9) above, we easily identify

$`\mathrm{}_{}`$ $``$ $`a,`$
$`\mathrm{}_{}`$ $``$ $`r_+.`$ (11)
This result is further supported by examining the capture of null geodesics in the plane of rotation — see appendix B.1. So ultra-spinning black holes are characterized by very large $`\mathrm{}_{}`$ and very small $`\mathrm{}_{}`$: the horizon is highly “pancaked” along the plane of rotation. That is, in accord with the naive intuition, the horizon of these rapidly rotating black holes spreads out in the plane of rotation while contracting in the transverse directions.

## 4 Black membrane limit

We now introduce a limit where the rotation parameter $`a`$ grows to infinity for the metric (1) with $`d6`$. If we keep the mass (i.e., $`\mu `$) finite as $`a\mathrm{}`$, then the horizon radius (6) and area (7) shrink to zero. Since we are interested in keeping a non-vanishing horizon, we will let $`\mu \mathrm{}`$ with $`\widehat{\mu }\mu /a^2`$ held fixed.

In this limit, if we are near the horizon away from the pole $`\theta =0`$, the rotation grows without bound. So in order to produce a finite metric, we will confine ourselves to progressively smaller regions near $`\theta =0`$. It is convenient to introduce a new coordinate $`\sigma =a\mathrm{sin}\theta `$ which is kept finite as $`a\mathrm{}`$ and therefore focuses on $`\theta 0`$. We also keep $`r`$ finite. Taking this limit for the solution (1) we obtain

$$ds^2=\left(1\frac{\widehat{\mu }}{r^{d5}}\right)dt^2+\frac{dr^2}{1\frac{\widehat{\mu }}{r^{d5}}}+r^2d\mathrm{\Omega }_{(d4)}^2+d\sigma ^2+\sigma ^2d\phi ^2.$$
(12)
This is the metric of a black membrane in $`d`$ dimensions, extended along the plane $`(\sigma ,\phi )`$. The tension of the membrane is proportional to $`\widehat{\mu }=\mu /a^2`$ and so is given by the limiting mass per unit area of the original black hole. The horizon in eq. (1) began with the topology of a sphere $`S^{d2}`$ and has now pancaked out in the plane of rotation producing the topology $`𝐑^\mathrm{𝟐}\times S^{d4}`$ in the limiting metric (12). The angular momentum is not longer visible in this limit since

$$g_{t\phi }\frac{\widehat{\mu }\sigma }{r^{d5}}\frac{\sigma }{a}0,$$
(13)
i.e., in this limit with $`\sigma a`$, the rotation of the horizon becomes negligible.

The existence of this limit has a remarkable consequence. Gregory and Laflamme (GL) have shown that black branes are classically unstable . Therefore, in the limit of infinite rotation six- or higher-dimensional black holes go over to a unstable configuration. It is then natural to conjecture that the instability sets in already at finite values of the rotation, so ultra-spinning black holes become classically unstable for large enough $`a`$.

Let us now argue in more detail that the instability must be present at large but finite rotation, and is not simply an artifact of the the limit taken above. When $`a`$ is large but finite, the geometry near the horizon and near the axis of the ultra-spinning black hole is well approximated by the metric (12) for $`r,\sigma <a`$. More precisely, one finds that the diagonal components of the metric are as given above in eq. (12) with corrections which are suppressed by factors of $`r^2/a^2`$ or $`\sigma ^2/a^2`$. Similarly, as indicated above, the only off-diagonal component $`g_{t\phi }`$ is suppressed by $`\sigma /a`$. Hence the spacetime geometry near the center of the “pancake” horizon is essentially that of the black membrane (12).

The wavelength of the threshold mode of the GL instability is $`\lambda _{GL}\widehat{\mu }^{1/(d5)}r_+`$. Since in the ultra-spinning regime $`r_+a`$, or $`\mu a^{d3}`$, there is ample room on the horizon to accommodate unstable fluctuations. In particular, one can construct initial data for localized wave packets containing unstable modes with support in a finite region near the horizon of the black membrane (12). It would then be possible to import this initial data with only minor perturbations to the pole region of the horizon of an ultra-spinning black hole, and in this setting the future evolution should display the same growth of unstable modes as for the full black membrane. In any event, it seems unlikely that the boundary conditions at the edge of the ultra-spinning horizon could eliminate the unstable modes, since the edge can be made to lie arbitrarily far away from the pole.

In appendix A, we extend the above discussion to black holes with several rotation parameters turned on. If at least one (in even $`d`$) or two (in odd $`d`$) of the spins are much smaller than the rest, then these black holes can have an ultra-spinning regime where the horizon is flattened along each of the ultra-spinning rotation planes. For example, if $`n`$ spins grow to infinity (with $`n<(d3)/2`$), one obtains, with the appropriate limit, a black $`2n`$-brane solution.

## 5 Remarks on thermodynamics

It has long been supposed that the classical GL instability has a connection with the thermodynamic properties of the black branes. In their original work , GL gave an argument based on global thermodynamic stability to suggest that the unstable black string would fragment into a chain of localized black holes. While this scenario is controversial , sharper conjectures as the relation between the classical and local thermodynamic stability of black branes have been recently formulated . In these discussions, the appearance of a negative specific heat of a black brane is related to the onset of a classical instability. Previous investigations have focused on charged black branes  and little consideration has been given to spin . In this direction, let us comment that for the Kerr black hole, the phase transition signaled by the divergence of the specific heat (at constant $`J`$)  is not associated to any classical instability of the Kerr black hole, which is believed to be stable. Instead, following , one would associate this phase transition with a transition towards classical stabilization of the Kerr black string at a finite spin. Further work in this direction is in progress.

Before leaving this topic, however, we observe that the thermodynamics of the spinning black holes (1) show a qualitative change in behavior. That is, these black holes make a transition from behaving similar to the Kerr black hole, to behaving like a black membrane. The simplest and perhaps clearest quantity to consider is the black hole temperature

$$T=\frac{1}{4\pi }\left(\frac{2r_+^{d4}}{\mu }+\frac{d5}{r_+}\right).$$
(14)
For fixed mass and increasing spin, $`r_+`$ always decreases. So, beginning from zero spin, the first term in the r.h.s. of (14) dominates and $`T`$ always decreases, like in the familiar case of the Kerr black hole. In $`d=4`$ and $`d=5`$ the temperature shrinks to zero at extremality, but in $`d6`$ there is no extremal limit. Instead, $`T`$ reaches a minimum and then starts growing like $`r_+^1`$, as expected for the black membrane. The minimum, where the behavior changes, can be determined exactly as

$$\frac{a}{r_+}=\sqrt{\frac{d3}{d5}}.$$
(15)
For the dimensionless quantity $`a^{d3}/\mu `$ one finds the critical values

$$\frac{a^{d3}}{\mu }=1.29(d=6);1.33(d=7);1.34(d=8).$$
(16)
This analysis seems to indicate that the membrane-like behavior, and hence the instability, occurs at a relatively low value of the angular momentum, i.e., not too far into the ultra-spinning regime. In the next section we present further evidence for this.

## 6 Death by fragmentation

The arguments of the previous sections provide a clear indication that ultra-spinning black holes become classically unstable as the rotation parameter grows. A precise determination of the angular momentum per unit mass at which the instability appears requires a linearized analysis of the perturbations of the Myers-Perry black holes (which may show unstable modes other than the ones suggested by the limiting GL instability). This is a difficult but important task that we will not pursue in this paper, where we remain at a more heuristic level.

Furthermore, the linearized perturbation analysis does not reveal by itself what is the final fate of the black hole. Indeed, the fate of black branes undergoing the GL instability has been a matter of debate over the last few years. As we mentioned in the previous section, GL gave a thermodynamic argument for the fragmentation of a black string  and we return to this reasoning here. The essential idea was that a black string compactified on a large enough circle could increase the horizon area if it pinched off to become a black hole (of the same mass) localized in the circle. Hence such a process would be driven by the second law. Further, this thermodynamic transition happens when the compact circle can also fit the wavelength of GL-unstable modes, suggesting a connection between both instabilities. So  proposed that the rippling of the horizon observed at linearized order grows until the horizon pinches off down to Planckian-size necks. At this point, quantum gravity effects should split off the black string into black holes. After ref. , this picture has become more controversial. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that the global thermodynamical argument appears to be linked quite precisely to the classical instability. Certainly we are not aware of any counterexamples to this connection. Therefore in the following we will consider the instability of the ultra-spinning higher-dimensional black holes from the simple point of view of the entropy arguments presented in ref. . That is, we wish to compare the horizon area of an ultra-spinning black hole to that of a plausible final state. Whenever the total final horizon area is larger than the area of the initial black hole, we take it as an indication of an instability.

We examine the possibility that the ultra-spinning black hole breaks apart into two identical black holes carrying away the spin as orbital angular momentum. This could happen if, e.g., the horizon develops a ‘bar-mode’ instability which eventually disrupts the horizon. Our approximation is rather crude since we neglect the emission of gravitational radiation along the process, but this is the same as in the original GL argument. We also take the final black holes to be non-spinning, since this maximizes the final entropy. For the same reason, we do not describe the fragmentation into more than two black holes. We take the final black holes to be of equal mass; it is easy to allow for different masses, but it leads to essentially the same results.

The initial state is characterized by the black hole mass $`M`$ and spin $`J`$, or the parameters $`\mu `$ and $`a`$ in (3). Recall that the initial area (7) is

$$𝒜_0=\mathrm{\Omega }_{d2}r_+^{d4}(r_+^2+a^2).$$
(17)
The final state consists of two black holes, each of mass $`m`$, infinitely far from each other, and moving in antiparallel directions, with impact parameter $`2R`$. The latter will be fixed later on. If the total energy and angular momentum are $`M`$ and $`J`$, then, in the center-of-momentum frame, the momenta of the final black holes are $`\pm J/2R`$, so

$$M=2\sqrt{m^2+\frac{J^2}{4R^2}}.$$
(18)
One can solve for $`m`$ as

$$m=\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{M^2\frac{J^2}{R^2}}.$$
(19)
Defining

$$\mu _1=\frac{16\pi G}{(d2)\mathrm{\Omega }_{d2}}m$$
(20)
then (19) becomes

$$\mu _1=\frac{r_+^{d5}(r_+^2+a^2)}{2}\sqrt{1\frac{4}{(d2)^2}\frac{a^2}{R^2}}.$$
(21)
The final black holes are assumed to be non-rotating. They are moving apart at asymptotically constant velocity, but the black hole area is invariant under boosts . So the total final area is

$$𝒜_1=2\mathrm{\Omega }_{d2}\mu _1^{\frac{d2}{d3}}.$$
(22)
Our criterion for an instability

$$𝒜_1/𝒜_0>1$$
(23)
becomes

$$\frac{1+(a/r_+)^2}{2}\left(1\frac{4}{(d2)^2}\frac{a^2}{R^2}\right)^{\frac{d2}{2}}>1.$$
(24)
It is clear that $`𝒜_1`$ will be maximized by setting $`R`$ as large as possible, i.e, when the escaping black holes carry away the angular momentum with minimal kinetic energy and hence maximal rest mass and maximal horizon area. However, in the absence of further knowledge about the fragmentation process, it would not be reasonable to assume that $`R`$ is much larger than the radius of the initial horizon in the rotation plane. For large rotation, we know that this radius is approximately equal to $`a`$. From (24) we see that if $`R`$ scales as $`a`$ then the inequality will always be satisfied for large enough $`a`$. In fact, this will be the case whenever $`R`$ grows faster than $`\frac{2}{d2}a`$. So in the ultra-spinning regime the entropic arguments seem to allow for a rather wide margin for fragmentation into two black holes.

To obtain an estimate of the transition point, we make a specific choice requiring that $`R`$ is not larger than the horizon radius,

$$R\sqrt{r_+^2+a^2}.$$
(25)
Saturating this inequality yields the following values for eq. (24) to be satisfied:

$$\frac{a}{r_+}1.36(d=6),1.26(d=7),1.20(d=8),$$
(26)
or equivalently,

$$\frac{a^{d3}}{\mu }0.88(d=6),0.97(d=7),1.02(d=8).$$
(27)
Alternative choices such as $`R=k\sqrt{r_+^2+a^2}`$, or $`R=ka`$, with $`k1`$, lead to minor differences in the critical value of $`a/r_+`$ as long as $`k>2/(d2)`$ i.e., $`R`$ scales faster than $`\frac{2}{d2}a`$. The quantitative differences for different values of $`d`$ are also small. Obviously, these values should not be taken too literally. The important result is that the area criterion (23) seems to signal an instability for values of $`a/r_+`$ not much larger than one.

We have also considered a variety of other possible final configurations, e.g., final state black holes with different masses, or two black holes flying apart, with a third one (rotating or not) remaining at the initial position. In all cases the qualitative results remain as above, with the critical value of $`a`$ being always a few times $`r_+`$.

Of course, an alternative conjecture as to the evolution of the instability is that the ultra-spinning black holes decay by the emission of gravitational radiation. We comment on this scenario below in the next section and in appendix B.

## 7 Discussion

We have shown that in the ultra-spinning regime of a black hole, a wide portion of its horizon is well approximated by a flat black membrane. Taken together with the GL instability of black branes, we come to the conclusion that ultra-spinning black holes must be classically unstable. We have also shown that thermodynamic arguments, based on the second law, seem to support this view. Thus we find a dynamical “Kerr bound” on the spin in $`d`$ dimensions of the form

$$J^{d3}\beta _dGM^{d2},$$
(28)
where the numerical factor

$$\beta _d=\frac{2^{d+1}\pi }{(d2)^{d2}\mathrm{\Omega }_{d2}}\left(\frac{a^{d3}}{\mu }\right)_{\mathrm{crit}}$$
(29)
is fixed in $`d6`$ by the onset of an instability at critical values of the parameters. The simple estimates of Secs. 4 and 6 suggest that $`(a^{d3}/\mu )_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ is not much larger than a few, with a weak dependence on $`d`$. Note that this implies that the numerical value of $`\beta _d`$ becomes small rapidly with increasing $`d`$ (recall $`\beta _4=1`$).

Throughout the preceding, we have only considered higher-dimensional black holes rotating in a single plane. However, we stress again that this restriction was made only to simplify the presentation. Appendix A presents an extension of the black brane limit in section 4 to black holes with multiple spins. Hence we argue that analogous instabilities arise for this case.

In section 6, evidence suggesting that $`(a^{d3}/\mu )_{\mathrm{crit}}=O(1)`$ came from extending the thermodynamic arguments of ref.  and considering the possibility that an ultra-spinning black hole could fragment into several black holes carrying orbital angular momentum. A more conventional suggestion (which does not rely on quantum gravity effects) would be that the rotating black hole horizon becomes distorted, and since the black hole is rotating gravitational waves are emitted. This radiation could by itself cause a spin-down returning the black hole to the stable regime. However, a detailed description of such a spin-down (or the gravitational radiation produced in any decay process) is beyond the scope of this paper. Appendix B presents some calculations which take some tentative steps in this direction by considering processes in which the black hole is only slightly perturbed away from the Myers-Perry solutions (1). However, it seems that these putative decay processes are in conflict with the area theorem — they do not seem to produce radiation and an increase in the total area at the same time, so they are probably forbidden. The most likely outcome is that the instability must produce highly nonlinear distortions of the horizon in order for gravitational radiation to provide an effective mechanism to dissipate the angular momentum of ultra-spinning black holes.

An important application of the limiting membrane geometry is the identification of the sector of the perturbations of the spinning black hole where the instability is expected. For the limiting membrane eq. (12), GL found an unstable tensor perturbation, regular on the horizon, and preserving the $`SO(d3)`$ symmetry of the transverse sphere $`S^{d4}`$, with components of the generic form

$$h^{\mu \nu }e^{\mathrm{\Omega }t}e^{i(k_1z^1+k_2z^2)}h(r),$$
(30)
where $`z^1`$, $`z^2`$ are Cartesian coordinates along the planar membrane direction. They found that when $`k=\sqrt{k_1^2+k_2^2}`$ is below a critical wavenumber $`k_c`$ $`(r_+^1)`$, then $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ becomes real and positive, hence the perturbation is unstable. At the threshold $`k=k_c`$, there is a static, zero-mode perturbation with $`\mathrm{\Omega }=0`$. Note that it is only $`k`$, and not $`k_1`$ or $`k_2`$ separately, that enters the perturbation. Therefore, if instead of the plane wave basis in $`(z^1,z^2)`$ in (30), we choose a cylindrical basis in polar coordinates $`(\sigma ,\phi )`$ with Bessel wavefunctions,

$$h^{\mu \nu }e^{\mathrm{\Omega }t}J_m(k\sigma )e^{im\phi }h(r),$$
(31)
then the azimuthal number $`m`$ is irrelevant for the GL perturbations, in the sense that whenever $`k<k_c`$, the instability will be present for any value of $`m`$. So, in particular, there do exist unstable modes in the axially symmetric sector $`m=0`$. The radial profile of one such unstable mode is a cylindrical wave $`J_0(k\sigma )`$.

Importing these observations to the perturbation problem of ultra-spinning black holes, where we trade $`\sigma `$ for the polar angle $`\theta `$, we see that in order to identify an unstable mode we can restrict ourselves to perturbations that depend only on $`r`$ and $`\theta `$, and which preserve all the rotation symmetries $`SO(2)\times SO(d3)`$ of the black hole. So the instability need not break the axial symmetry of the rotating black hole, and this unstable mode will not be radiated away, at least at this linearized order. Other modes which are not axially symmetric presumably become more complicated as one reaches the region of the horizon where rotation ceases to be negligible. Such perturbations should cause the black hole to emit gravitational waves, as considered above.

An interesting recent study of the stability problem focused on scalar perturbations of the five-dimensional rotating black hole, and also on axially symmetric scalar perturbations in higher dimensions222The same equations for scalar perturbations have been obtained by a number of other researchers . The separability of the variables $`r`$ and $`\theta `$ has been noted by all of them, but only ref.  have investigated stability in detail.. No signs of instability were found . This is indeed compatible with our analysis, since black branes are known to be stable to scalar perturbations . Therefore the sector where the unstable mode indicated by the limiting GL instability is expected to lie, has not been probed yet. There is of course the possibility of unstable perturbations besides the ones we have identified.

Consider now the threshold, zero-mode axisymmetric perturbation with $`k=k_c`$. It has been shown in  that the GL zero-mode signals a new branch of black brane solutions, which break the translation invariance along the brane. These are inhomogeneous black branes, with an energy higher than the corresponding homogeneous branes. Their existence suggests the possibility of a similar new class of stationary rotating black holes with a rippled horizon of spherical topology. For one such ultra-spinning rippled black hole, the geometry near the pole $`\theta 1`$ and $`ra`$ should be well approximated by an axially symmetric inhomogeneous black membrane. The ripples have a profile in the polar angle $`\theta `$, and preserve all the rotational $`SO(2)\times SO(d3)`$ symmetry of the horizon. If one were able to develop at least the relevant part of the perturbation theory of spinning black holes, then the rippled rotating black holes should branch-off from axisymmetric zero-mode perturbations. Of course, these black holes may be unstable themselves, e.g., to perturbations that break axial symmetry.

It has been conjectured that there should exist spinning black hole solutions with only two Killing isometries . However, the new solutions we are proposing are not of this sort, since they will have the same number of Killing isometries as the already known black holes. Even if we are conjecturing their existence from membrane solutions that break some symmetry, the radial symmetry that is broken is absent at any finite values of the rotation.

If such solutions actually exist, then it would seem impossible to have a version of black hole uniqueness within the class of black holes with a given topology of the horizon. Our study might, perhaps, be taken to add to the conjecture that local stability, which plays no role in the proof of uniqueness in four dimensions, may be the feature that selects, in higher dimensions, one solution among others with the same asymptotic charges . However, the catalogue of solutions and their properties are too poorly understood at present to extract any conclusions in this respect.

We have focused on $`d6`$, but the situation in $`d=5`$ is also quite interesting. Although these black holes cannot be ultra-spinning, their geometry close to extremality is also a thin pancake of radius $`\mathrm{}_{}a`$ and thickness $`\mathrm{}_{}r_+`$. However, there is no black brane limit, since in $`d=5`$ there are no black two-branes. So there is no robust argument for an instability in this case.

Nevertheless, it has been conjectured that an instability sets in before the extremal solution is reached . We observe further that the argument for fragmentation in Sec. 6 applies as well in $`d=5`$. The extremal limit in $`d=5`$ corresponds to $`a^2\mu `$, $`r_+0`$, i.e., $`a/r_+\mathrm{}`$. With the choice (25), the area criterion (24) implies the critical value $`a/r_+=1.60`$, or

$$\left(\frac{a^2}{\mu }\right)_{\mathrm{crit}}=0.72(d=5).$$
(32)
So even if this case has no black brane limit, an instability near extremality could be expected. Instead, in $`d=4`$ we cannot have $`a>r_+`$ and, consistently, none of the previous arguments predict any instability.

On the other hand, the five-dimensional black ring of  does have an ultra-spinning regime. If the limit of infinite spin is taken in such a way that the horizon area per unit length of the ring remains finite, then it approaches a straight, boosted black string. This is also expected to suffer from the GL instability, and therefore a Kerr-bound similar to (28) should hold. Note that all known solutions that admit an ultra-spinning regime have some form of black brane limit at infinite rotation. This may be a generic feature.

Finally we would like to conclude with a few comments of the implications of our results for black holes in braneworld scenarios . In these higher-dimensional models, the fundamental scale of gravity is dramatically reduced, possibly even to be $`O(\mathrm{TeV})`$, and the size of the compact dimensions is increased to be much larger than the corresponding fundamental length scale. Hence one must consider seriously classical solutions of general relativity in higher dimensions. One of the consequences is that there are discernible changes in the properties of black holes when their Schwarzschild radius is less than the compactification scale . In section 3, we showed that the horizon of an ultra-spinning black hole was very extended in the plane of rotation but very narrow in all of the transverse directions. Hence, naively, it would seem that such black holes could arise in braneworld models, and as a consequence, we might expect to find macroscopic black holes whose angular momentum far exceeds the standard Kerr bound. An observation of such a black hole would seem to provide clear evidence of extra dimensions. Unfortunately, this line of reasoning is undermined by our discovery that ultra-spinning black holes are unstable. That is, even if such a macroscopic black hole was created, it would rapidly decay and presumably settle down to a configuration which presents no violations of the Kerr bound.

Note, however, that given the inequality (28), microscopic black holes need not conform to the four-dimensional Kerr bound. For comparison purposes consider six spacetime dimensions. Then eq. (28) yields $`J\stackrel{<}{}(M/M_{fun})^{4/3}`$ while the standard Kerr bound becomes $`J\stackrel{<}{}(M/M_{Planck})^2M^2/(M_{fun}^4L_{compact}^2)`$. Hence the maximum angular momentum rises more rapidly in the first (higher-dimensional) inequality because of both the power and the prefactor. Of course, the expressions on the l.h.s. of the two inequalities meet roughly when the horizon radius of the black hole reaches the compactification scale $`L_{compact}`$. Hence the microscopic or higher-dimensional Kerr bound merges smoothly with the standard four-dimensional Kerr bound which still constrains the macroscopic black holes.

Another dramatic prediction of the braneworld scenarios is that it becomes much easier to produce microscopic black holes in subatomic collisions of elementary particles — see, for example, refs. . In the initial analyses , the cross-section for black hole formation in a grazing collision was estimated to be $`\pi R_S^2`$, where $`R_S`$ was the (higher-dimensional) Schwarzschild radius associated with the center-of-mass energy. In many cases  it was suggested that an improvement which took into account the angular momentum associated with particles colliding with a finite impact parameter was to replace $`R_S`$ with the coordinate radius $`r_+`$ determined by eq. (5). However, $`r_+`$ has no invariant meaning as it can be changed by a coordinate transformation, and moreover, given the discussion of the horizon geometry in section 3, this choice would seem to be a gross underestimate which does not conform with the geometric picture that motivated the original estimate. More convincingly, one can employ analytic and numerical methods  to search for an apparent horizon for two particles colliding with a finite impact parameter. This analysis puts an upper bound on the impact parameter in higher dimensions .333These results have recently been incorporated in the phenomenological analysis of ref. .

Hence it appears that the ultra-spinning black holes play no role in the black hole production from particle collisions, and it seems plausible that this result is related to the instability of these solutions. One’s usual intuition (as developed in four dimensions) is that black holes are stable objects and hence gravitational collapse inevitably settles down to one of a limited family of black hole solutions. Now roughly one may think of the solutions of Einstein’s equations as trajectories in a superspace of spatial geometries, and then the previous intuition could be summarized by saying that the black hole solutions are distinguished as attractors in this space of trajectories. In contrast, the instability of the ultra-spinning black holes suggests that these solutions actually are “repellors” in the space of solutions. That is, nearby trajectories are driven away by the unstable nature of these ultra-spinning solutions. Turning this around then, one might interpret the results on apparent horizons  as further evidence that $`(a^{d3}/\mu )_{\mathrm{crit}}=O(1)`$.

In any event, because of their instability, it seems that ultra-spinning black holes have no dramatic consequences for braneworld scenarios.

## Acknowledgements

RCM was supported in part by NSERC of Canada and Fonds FCAR du Québec. RE was supported in part by grants UPV00172.310-14497, MCyT FPA2001-3598, DURSI 2001-SGR-00188 and HPRN-CT-2000-00131. RE would like to thank the Perimeter Institute for their warm hospitality during a portion of this work. RCM thanks the KITP for their hospitality while this paper was being finished. Research at the KITP was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY99-07949. We also thank Jordan Hovdebo and Don Marolf for useful conversations. We have presented this work at CIAR Cosmology and Gravity Program Meeting (February 2001); IFT-UAM, Madrid (April 2001); CERN (May 2001); GR-16 Conference, Durban (July 2001); Feza Gürsey Institute, Istanbul (July 2003), and we would like to thank the audiences at all these places for their positive response and feedback.

## Appendix A Black brane limit with several independent spins

We discuss first the case of an odd number of spacetime dimensions $`d`$. The solution for a black hole with arbitrary rotation in each of the $`(d1)/2`$ independent rotation planes is

$$ds^2=dt^2+(r^2+a_i^2)(d\mu _i^2+\mu _i^2d\phi _i^2)+\frac{\mu r^2}{\mathrm{\Pi }F}(dt+a_i\mu _i^2d\phi _i)^2+\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }F}{\mathrm{\Pi }\mu r^2}dr^2.$$
(33)
Unless otherwise stated, we assume summation over $`i=1,\mathrm{},\frac{d1}{2}`$. The mass parameter is $`\mu `$, not to be confused with the direction cosines $`\mu _i`$, which satisfy $`\mu _i^2=1`$. Here

$$F=1\frac{a_i^2\mu _i^2}{r^2+a_i^2},\mathrm{\Pi }=\underset{i=1}{\overset{(d1)/2}{}}(r^2+a_i^2).$$
(34)
We assume that the parameters are such that a horizon exists. A sufficient, but not necessary, condition is that any two of the spin parameters vanish, i.e., if two $`a_i`$ vanish, a horizon will always exist irrespective of how large the remaining spin parameters are .

Take the first $`n`$ rotation parameters to be comparable among themselves, and much larger than the remaining $`(d1)/2n`$ ones. We use the index $`j`$ for the former, and $`k`$ for the latter. We take the limit

$`a_j`$ $`\mathrm{},`$ $`j=1,\mathrm{},n,`$
$`a_k`$ $`\mathrm{finite},`$ $`k=n+1,\mathrm{},{\displaystyle \frac{d1}{2}},`$ (35)
where the different $`a_j`$ go to infinity at the same rate. We also take $`\mu \mathrm{}`$, keeping

$$\frac{\mu }{_ja_j^2}\widehat{\mu }$$
(36)
finite, and define new coordinates $`\sigma _j=a_j\mu _j`$ (no sum) that stay finite as we approach $`\mu _j0`$. The remaining $`\mu _k`$ must satisfy $`\mu _k^2=1`$. In the limit

$`F`$ $``$ $`1{\displaystyle \frac{a_k^2\mu _k^2}{r^2+a_k^2}}\widehat{F},`$
$`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}(r^2+a_k^2){\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}a_j^2\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}a_j^2,`$ (37)
i.e., $`\widehat{F}`$ and $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}`$ are the same functions as in (34) but now involving only the $`(d1)/2n`$ rotation parameters that remain finite. The metric that results is

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`dt^2+(r^2+a_k^2)(d\mu _k^2+\mu _k^2d\phi _k^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{\mu }r^2}{\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}\widehat{F}}}(dt+a_k\mu _k^2d\phi _k)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}\widehat{F}}{\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}\widehat{\mu }r^2}}dr^2`$ (38)
$`+d\sigma _j^2+\sigma _j^2d\phi _j^2.`$
The first line is a rotating black hole metric as in (33), but in $`d2n`$ dimensions. The remaining $`2n`$ dimensions, in the second line, form a flat $`𝐑^{2n}`$ with coordinates $`(\sigma _j,\phi _j)`$. So the limiting metric is a rotating black $`2n`$-brane, where the rotation is on the spherical $`S^{d2(n+1)}`$ sections of the horizon.

For even $`d`$ the general solution is

$$ds^2=dt^2+r^2d\alpha ^2+(r^2+a_i^2)(d\mu _i^2+\mu _i^2d\phi _i^2)+\frac{\mu r}{\mathrm{\Pi }F}(dt+a_i\mu _i^2d\phi _i)^2+\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }F}{\mathrm{\Pi }\mu r}dr^2,$$
(39)
where now $`i`$ runs to $`d/2`$, also in $`F`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ in (34), and $`\mu _i^2+\alpha ^2=1`$. In this case, the existence of a horizon is guaranteed if any one of the spins vanishes. Taking as before $`n`$ spins to infinity, we find again a rotating black $`2n`$-brane.

The presence of horizons for generic parameters in (33) and (39) is difficult to ascertain. If all spin parameters are non-zero, then an upper extremality bound on a combination of the spins arises . If it is exceeded, naked singularities appear, as in the $`d=4`$ Kerr black hole. One may worry that, if all spins are turned on, and we send some of them to infinity, then the extremal bound will always be exceeded. This is not the case, since at the same time we are taking $`\mu \mathrm{}`$ in an appropriate manner. In the case of even $`d`$, sending all parameters but one to infinity results in a Kerr $`(d4)`$-brane, and the bound on the spin of the latter is inherited from the higher-dimensional one. Conversely, the equation for the Kerr horizon provides a good approximation to determine the horizon for finite but large values of the spins $`a_j`$ (i.e., all $`a_j`$ are large and comparable, and $`a_ja_1`$):

$$r_+^2+a_1^2\frac{\mu }{_{j>1}a_j^2}r_+=0.$$
(40)
Note that this matches the equation determining the horizon for the full solution with the approximation $`r_+a_j`$. Either approach yields the bound that the minimum value for the mass parameter which yields a regular horizon is given by

$$\mu \stackrel{>}{}2|a_1|\underset{j>1}{}a_j^2.$$
(41)
In odd $`d`$, one can take, at most, all but two spins to infinity in order to get a black brane (i.e., there are no black $`(d3)`$-branes in $`d`$ dimensions, since there are no asymptotically flat vacuum black holes in three dimensions). In this case the generic limiting black brane is the product of $`𝐑^{d5}`$ times the doubly-spinning five-dimensional black hole. If both spins are non-zero, then there is a regular extremal limit, while if one of them is zero the extremal solution is singular .444It is quite likely that more general higher-dimensional solutions exist which have as a limit the product of the black ring of  times a flat $`𝐑^{2n}`$. In each case one can obtain the analogue of Eq. (40). In general, the condition for the existence of an ultra-spinning regime with $`n`$ fast spins becomes, in the limit, the same as the condition for the existence of a horizon in $`d2n`$ dimensions, with only slow spins, and with mass parameter given by (36).

If all the non-infinite rotations $`a_k`$ are zero, then the analysis of  shows that the limiting static black branes are unstable. The results of  have not been extended to rotating black branes, not even to the Kerr black branes, and it is not known the range of spins for which an instability occurs. It seems reasonable to expect that for small rotation $`a_k`$ the instability should be present, but in general a more complicated behavior can be expected, on the basis of a conjectured connection between classical and thermodynamic stability of black branes . This is currently under investigation.

## Appendix B Death by radiation

A conservative conjecture as to the evolution of the ultra-spinning black holes is that with the onset of the instability, the black hole horizon will generically be distorted in such a way that its axial symmetry is broken. Since the black hole is rotating, a varying quadrupole moment will appear and gravitational waves will be emitted. In this way, the black hole will shed a fraction of both its spin and its mass. If it loses enough angular momentum, it may return to a range of values of $`(M,J)`$ within the stable regime. Again, this process must proceed in a way that the horizon area increases monotonically throughout so as to be compatible with Hawking’s area theorem.

To produce a precise description of the spin-down above, it seems one can not avoid solving the higher-dimensional Einstein equations in a strong field regime. Hence we were not able to produce a detailed calculation of the gravitational radiation. However, we present some calculations which make some tentative steps in this direction. In particular, we have in mind processes in which the black hole is only slightly perturbed. For example, if the original angular momentum is only slightly beyond the region of stability, one might imagine that throughout the entire evolution the black hole will only deviate from the family of solutions in eq. (1). Now as commented above, the area theorem requires that the emission of gravitational radiation must be accompanied by an increase of the horizon area. Having supposed that there are processes whose effects are perturbative, we can examine the variation of the horizon area of the solutions (1). Such an analysis might give a hint as to the boundary between the stable and unstable regimes. However, we warn the reader that our results are inconclusive.

We begin with some general observations. Imagine that one detects the radiation at a large sphere surrounding the black hole. In some short interval, it carries away some angular momentum $`\delta J`$ from the black hole, and also some energy $`\delta E`$. On general grounds, one might imagine that $`\delta J`$ is directly proportional to $`\delta E`$. However, on dimensional grounds, we must introduce some physically relevant scale in the proportionality constant. In a standard radiation calculation, this might be the frequency of the emitted waves. In the present case, it turns out to be convenient to use the angular frequency of the horizon,

$$\mathrm{\Omega }=\frac{a}{r_+^2+a^2},$$
(42)
with which we write

$$\mathrm{\Omega }\delta J=\alpha \delta E.$$
(43)
Here $`\alpha `$ is a dimensionless coefficient that characterizes the efficiency of the radiation process, i.e., large $`\alpha `$ corresponds to a process that radiates spin efficiently. Now for a slightly perturbed solution, the first law of black hole mechanics allows us to obtain the variation in the black hole area as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa }{8\pi }}\delta 𝒜`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }\delta J\delta E`$ (44)
$`=`$ $`(\alpha 1)\delta E,`$
where $`\kappa `$ is the surface gravity of the black hole horizon. Hence with the definition of the efficiency factor in eq. (43), we have the simple result that demanding that $`\delta 𝒜0`$ requires

$$\alpha 1.$$
(45)
This result only predicts that the area theorem can be satisfied for any spin provided that there exist radiation processes with $`\alpha >1`$. Of course, we expect that this efficiency can only be attained for large spins, i.e., an instability is only expected to appear in the ultra-spinning regime. To determine what realistic values for efficiency factor might be, we examined two models for the emission of gravitational waves.

The first was to consider the emission from a near-Newtonian slow-motion source. In four dimensions, this is a textbook calculation  and has been recently been extended to higher dimensions in ref. . We present no details here but rather observe that the final result $`\delta E=\omega \delta J`$ matches the variation in energy and angular momentum loss of the source which rigidly rotates with angular frequency $`\omega `$ (in any spacetime dimension). If we assume that this result were to apply in the present problem with $`\omega =\mathrm{\Omega }`$, it would give $`\alpha =1`$ independent of the value of the spin parameter $`a`$. The latter is, of course, unexpected since we are looking to find an instability only in the ultra-spinning regime. It is likely that it is simply inappropriate to consider the black hole to be a rigidly rotating body, i.e., , both the angular frequency and the moment of inertia vary during the spin-down.

We also consider a model where the rotating black hole emits a null particle in the plane of rotation. One might think of this process as approximating “radiation” focussed in the equatorial plane. In particular, one can consider the emission of many or several massless particles and the analysis would be essentially unchanged with the contributions of the individual particles combining additively. Unfortunately our final result is that this conjectured decay mechanism does not lead to an increase in the area of the horizons, and therefore is ruled out as a possible decay channel. Nevertheless, it provides an instructive example to consider, and it is also an instance where the calculations can be performed quite rigorously, in particular we can determine precisely the efficiency factor $`\alpha `$, or equivalently, the impact parameter $`R`$ of the outgoing particle. Hence we present the calculation in the following subsection.

The latter negative result is somewhat disturbing as since the null particles are confined to the plane of rotation, this would seem the most efficient possible way to dissipate the angular momentum. It is hard to believe that gravitational radiation from distortions in an ultra-spinning horizon would not cause a spin-down of the black hole. We take our present results as an indication that the instability must produce distortions deep in the nonlinear regime for the radiation process to be efficient. That is, we can not rely on calculations which consider only small perturbations of the stationary black hole solutions (1).

### B.1 Emission of massless particles

Consider that the rotating black hole emits a massless particle from its edge in the plane of rotation, tangentially to the horizon and in the direction of rotation. The particle carries away energy $`\delta E`$ and orbital angular momentum $`\delta J`$, small enough so we can treat it as a test particle in the black hole background. We also consider that the black hole evolves from the solution with mass and spin ($`M`$, $`J`$) to an infinitesimally close one with ($`M\delta E`$, $`J\delta J`$). The trajectory of the massless particle can be easily computed as a null geodesic in the plane of rotation of the black hole. For a massless particle that at infinity has energy $`\delta E`$ and orbital angular momentum $`\delta J`$, the radial equation is

$$\dot{r}^2=(\delta E)^2V(r)$$
(46)
with

$$V(r)=\frac{\mu \left(\delta Ja\delta E\right)^2}{r^{d1}}+\frac{(\delta J)^2a^2(\delta E)^2}{r^2},$$
(47)
and where $`\mu `$ and $`a`$ give $`M`$ and $`J`$ as in (3). This potential has a maximum at a critical value

$$r_c=\left(\frac{(d1)\mu }{2}\frac{\delta Ja\delta E}{\delta J+a\delta E}\right)^{1/(d3)}.$$
(48)
A particle going out from $`r<r_c`$ needs to have enough energy to climb up the gravitational potential in order to escape out to infinity. This determines a minimum energy $`(\delta E)^2=V(r_c)`$ and therefore a maximum possible impact parameter $`R=\delta J/\delta E`$ for a particle escaping the black hole tangentially on the plane of rotation. Then the maximal impact parameter is determined by solving

$$\left(\frac{R}{a}+1\right)^{d1}\left(\frac{R}{a}1\right)^{d5}=\frac{1}{4}\frac{(d1)^{d1}}{(d3)^{d3}}\left(\frac{\mu }{a^{d3}}\right)^2.$$
(49)
Now comparing to the previous discussion, we see that the efficiency factor is given by $`\alpha =\mathrm{\Omega }R`$. Hence we must determine if this expression can be larger than one.

In the ultra-spinning regime the r.h.s. of eq. (49) is a small quantity, and so we must have $`R/a1`$.555Here we assume $`R`$ is positive. $`R<0`$ and $`Ra`$ corresponds to the particle coming in on the other side of the center axis. This result agrees with our previous estimate that the geometric size of the pancaked horizon is of order $`a`$ in the plane of rotation. Solving Eq. (49) approximately with large $`a`$ yields

$$\alpha =\frac{aR}{r_+^2+a^2}=1+c_d\frac{r_+^2}{a^2}+O((r_+/a)^3)\mathrm{where}c_d=\left[\frac{1}{2^{d+1}}\frac{(d1)^{d1}}{(d3)^{d3}}\right]^{\frac{1}{d5}}1.$$
(50)
Unfortunately, for all dimensions $`d6`$, we have $`c_d<0`$ and so, even in the extreme ultra-spinning regime, the inequality (45) is not satisfied. We have also examined the solutions to eq. (49) numerically for a wide range of $`d`$, and in all cases we have found that $`\alpha <1`$, i.e., the area never increases by emission of the massless particle.666Closer examination shows that this does not happen in $`d=5`$ either. Therefore, this does not seem to be a possible decay channel for ultra-spinning black holes.

Note that the requirement $`\alpha >1`$, i.e., $`R/a>1/(a\mathrm{\Omega })`$, is more stringent than that in eq. (24) which, for large enough $`a/r_+`$, only requires $`R/a>2/(d2)`$. This can be attributed to the fact that in the present case one of the decay products (the massless particle) does not contribute to the total final horizon area, in contrast to the fragmentation scenario.

It is interesting to consider this result in a different light by reversing the arrow of time. Doing so, we would be studying the variation in the final area obtained by throwing a massless particle at the rotating black hole, at the maximum possible impact parameter for capture. The analysis above shows now that if the particle is captured by the black hole, then there is an infinitesimally close black hole of mass $`M+\delta E`$ and spin $`J+\delta J`$, and with larger area, that the system can evolve into. If there had not been any, it would have been a clear sign of an instability – the area theorem forbids a decrease in the area, so a violent back reaction should have been necessary in order for the black hole to evolve into a configuration, of larger area, not infinitesimally close to the initial one.