Emergent Symmetry on Black Hole Horizons

Abstract

For a stationary and axisymmetric black hole, there is a natural way to split the fields into a probe sector and a background sector. The equations of motion for the probe sector enjoy a significantly enhanced symmetry on the black hole horizon. The extended symmetry is conformal in four dimensions, while in higher dimensions it is much bigger. This puts conformal symmetry at the bottom of the ladder of symmetries that can arise on black hole horizons in generic dimensions.