High Energy Theory Seminar

In this talk, I will demonstrate a surprising way in which near-extremal black holes are sensitive probes of new physics. For extremal Kerr black holes, higher-derivative corrections cubic and quartic in the Riemann tensor induce tidal force singularities on the horizon, leading to a breakdown of the gravitational effective field theory close to the horizon. Adding a small charge dramatically strengthens this effect, with four-derivative terms in the Einstein-Maxwell effective action producing tidal forces that scale inversely with the black hole temperature. I will demonstrate this effect analytically in the extremal limit and numerically for finite-temperature black holes, and will estimate its size for realistic astrophysical scenarios.

The talk is in 469 Lauritsen.

Contact [email protected] for Zoom information.