Higher-curvature corrections and near horizon symmetries

Abstract

In the near-horizon region, black holes exhibit an infinite-dimensional symmetry reminiscent of the Bondi-Metzner-Sachs (BMS) supertranslations. The conserved charges associated with this symmetry can be computed in gravitational theories of arbitrary spacetime dimension and involving curvature terms of any order. In Lovelock theory, for instance, these charges take the form of nested Lagrangian densities corresponding to topological invariants, each weighted by the supertranslation function -- thus providing a natural generalization of the Wald entropy formula. In four dimensions, the computation of the supertranslation charge reduces to the evaluation of the Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) action on the two-dimensional spacelike sections of the event horizon.