Lightlike limit of the boosted Kerr black holes in higher-dimensional spacetimes

Abstract

Deriving the gravitational field of the high-energy objects is an important theme because the black holes might be produced in particle collisions in the brane world scenario. In this paper, we develop a method for boosting the metric of the stationary objects and taking the lightlike limit in higher-dimensional spacetimes, using the Kerr black hole as one example. We analytically construct the metric of lightlike Kerr black holes and find that this method contains no ambiguity in contrast to the four-dimensional case. We discuss the possible implications of our results in the brane world context.