Uniqueness of static vacuum asymptotically flat black holes and equipotential photon surfaces in $n+1$ dimensions \`a la Robinson

Abstract

In this paper, we combine and generalize to higher dimensions the approaches to proving the uniqueness of connected (3+1)-dimensional static vacuum asymptotically flat black hole spacetimes by M\"uller zum Hagen--Robinson--Seifert and by Robinson. Applying these techniques, we prove and/or reprove geometric inequalities for connected (n + 1)-dimensional static vacuum asymptotically flat spacetimes with either black hole or equipotential photon surface or specifically photon sphere inner boundary. In particular, assuming a natural upper bound on the total scalar curvature of the boundary, we recover and extend the well-known uniqueness results for such black hole and equipotential photon surface spacetimes. We also relate our results and proofs to existing results, in particular to those by Agostiniani--Mazzieri and by Nozawa--Shiromizu--Izumi--Yamada.