Shape of black holes

Abstract

It is well known that celestial bodies tend to be spherical due to gravity and that rotation produces deviations from this sphericity. We discuss what is known and expected about the shape of black holes' horizons from their formation to their final, stationary state. We present some recent results showing that black hole rotation indeed manifests in the widening of their central regions, limits their global shapes and enforces their whole geometry to be close to the extreme Kerr horizon geometry at almost maximal rotation speed. The results depend only on the horizon area and angular momentum. In particular they are entirely independent of the surrounding geometry of the spacetime and of the presence of matter satisfying the strong energy condition. We also discuss the the relation of this result with the Hoop conjecture.