— Kerr Fest — Black Holes in Astrophysics, General Relativity and Quantum Gravity University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand 26–28, August, 2004 Who’s going to crack that Einstein equation? Me! Roy Kerr - age 2, Kurow Contents Overview: Roy Kerr and the spin on black holes 2 Organising Committee 3 Programme 4 THURSDAY 26 August . 4 FRIDAY 27 August . 5 SATURDAY 28 August . 6 Details of Social Events . 6 Abstracts 7 Special Talk . 7 Public Lecture . 7 Plenary Talks . 8 Contributed Talks . 12 Curriculum Vitae: Roy P. Kerr 16 Publications . 17 Guest Book 19 Participants 21 Sponsors NZIMA – New Zealand Institute of Mathematics and its Applications http://www.nzima.auckland.ac.nz/ The MacDiarmid Insitute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology http://www.macdiarmid.ac.nz/ The Royal Society of New Zealand (Marsden Fund) http://www.rsnz.org/ University of Canterbury, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, http://www.math.canterbury.ac.nz/ University of Canterbury, Department of Physics and Astronomy, http://www.phys.canterbury.ac.nz/ 1 Overview: Roy Kerr and the spin on black holes In 1963 the New Zealand mathematician Roy Kerr achieved something that had eluded scientists for 47 years — he found the solution of Einstein’s equations which describes the space outside a rotating star or black hole. Kerr’s solution has been described as “the most important exact solution to any equation in physics”. Shortly after Einstein wrote down his gravitational field equations in 1915, Karl Schwarzschild found a solution which describes a non-rotating spherical star or black hole. However, it is known that all stars rotate, and that Schwarzschild’s solution is at best an approximation. Kerr’s achievement of finding an exact solution for the rotating case — something many had doubted could be done - was therefore a revolution in astrophysics. Stephen Hawking describes events as follows [1]: “In 1963, Roy Kerr, a New Zealander, found a set of solutions of the equations of general relativity that described rotating black holes. These “Kerr” black holes rotate at a constant rate, their size and shape depending only on their mass and rate of rotation. If the rotation is zero, the black hole is perfectly round and the solution is identical to the Schwarzschild solution. If the rotation is non-zero, the black hole bulges outward near its equator (just as the earth or the sun bulge due to their rotation), and the faster it rotates, the more it bulges. So, to extend Israel’s result to include rotating bodies, it was conjectured that any rotating body that collapsed to form a black hole would eventually settle down to a stationary state described by the Kerr solution. In 1970 a colleague and fellow research student of mine at Cambridge, Brandon Carter, took the first step toward proving this conjecture. He showed that, provided a stationary rotating black hole had an axis of symmetry, like a spinning top, its size and shape would depend only on its mass and rate of rotation. Then, in 1971, I proved that any stationary rotating black hole would indeed have such an axis of symmetry. Finally, in 1973, David Robinson at Kings College, London, used Carter’s and my results to show that the conjecture had been correct: such a black hole had indeed to be the Kerr solution. ” The significance of the Kerr solution has perhaps been most eloquently summarised by the legendary astrophysicist S. Chandrasekhar (Nobel laureate, 1983) [2]: “In my entire scientific life, extending over forty-five years, the most shattering experience has been the realization that an exact solution of Einstein’s equations of general relativity, discovered by the New Zealand mathematician, Roy Kerr, provides the absolutely exact rep- resentation of untold numbers of massive black holes that populate the universe. This shuddering before the beautiful, this incredible fact that a discovery motivated by a search after the beautiful in mathe- matics should find its exact replica in Nature, persuades me to say that beauty is that to which the human mind responds at its deepest and most profound.” Over the 41 years since its discovery the Kerr solution has been pivotal in deepening our 2 understanding of astrophysics and gravitation. Many new effects arise in the Kerr solution - a rotating object drags space with it, in a way which would not be possible in Newton’s theory. The rotation of Kerr black holes has been shown to be a possible explanation for some of the most violent and energetic phenomena in the universe, such as the supernovae producing gamma ray bursts, and jets in active galactic nuclei. In recent years a wealth of new astronomical observations has provided strong evidence for the existence of rotating Kerr black holes. Most impressively, it has recently been shown from observations of matter falling into the supermassive black hole in the centre of our own galaxy that it must be rotating at close to half of the maximum rate allowed by the Kerr solution [3]. In future, the Kerr solution – and its numerical generalizations to describe neutron star and black hole mergers – will have a great role to play in understanding signatures of gravitational waves which we hope to detect over the next decade or two. In the year of Roy Kerr’s 70th birthday, we therefore believe it is timely to hold this Sym- posium to review these exciting recent advances and pay tribute to Roy and tremendous impact that his solution has had on astrophysics, general relativity and quantum gravity. References [1] S.W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time (Bantam Books, 1988), chapter 6. [2] S. Chandrasekhar, “Shakespeare, Newton, and Beethoven”, Ryerson Lecture, University of Chicago, 1975; reprinted in S. Chandrasekhar, “Truth and Beauty”, (University of Chicago Press, 1987) [3] R. Genzel et al., Nature 425 (2003) 934. Organising Committee David L Wiltshire (University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ) [chair] [email protected] Matt Visser (Victoria University of Wellington, NZ) [email protected] Susan M Scott (Australian National University, Canberra, Australia) [email protected] A Rod Gover (University of Auckland, NZ) [email protected] Local Organisation Merrin McAuley, Angela Armstrong (Conference Office, Continuing Education) David Wiltshire, Gill Evans, Ben Leith, Marni Sheppeard, Alex Nielsen, Benedict Carter, Mike Reid, Ishwaree Neupane, Ewan Stewart (Dept of Physics and Astronomy) 3 Programme All talks, unless otherwise indicated, are in Lecture Theatre 031, basement level Maths and Computer Sciences Building. THURSDAY 26 August 8:30–9:20 Registration (Foyer, basement level, Maths building) 9:20–9:30 Opening remarks (David Wiltshire) 9:30–9:40 Official welcome (Roy Sharp, Vice-Chancellor) PLENARY TALKS (Morning Chair: David Wiltshire) 9:40–10:30 Brandon Carter [CNRS, Paris-Meudon, France] Global and local problems with Kerr’s solution 10:30–11:10 Coffee 11:10–12:00 Maurice van Putten [LIGO / MIT, USA] The endpoint of binary evolution: Singlets, doublets? Triplets! 12:00- 1:30 Lunch 1:30–2:20 Gary Horowitz [U California, Santa Barbara, USA] Higher dimensional generalizations of the Kerr black hole CONTRIBUTED TALKS (Afternoon Chair: Anthony Lun) 2:20–2:45 Ishwaree Neupane [U Canterbury, New Zealand] Anti-de Sitter/de Sitter correspondence and twisting S-branes 2:45–3:10 Michael Kuchiev [UNSW, Australia] Reflection from the horizon of black holes 3:10–3:35 Victor Flambaum [UNSW, Australia] Reflection on the horizon and absorption of scalar particles by black holes 3:35–4:05 Coffee 4:05–4:30 Gabriela Slezakova [U Waikato, New Zealand] Geodesics of Kerr black holes 4:30–4:55 Stephen Fletcher [Monash U, Australia] Novikov coordinates for the Kerr spacetime 5:15–6:15 Welcome Reception (Room 701, 7th floor, Physics and Astronomy building) PUBLIC LECTURE (Lecture Theatre C1) 8:00–9:00 Fulvio Melia [U Arizona, USA] The supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy 4 FRIDAY 27 August PLENARY TALKS (Morning Chair: Matt Visser) 9:00–9:50 Josh Goldberg [Syracuse U, USA] Gravity and general relativity 9:50–10:40 Susan Scott [ANU, Australia] Can the Milky Way be weighed using Earth-based interferometry? 10:40–11:10 Coffee 11:10–12:00 Andy Fabian [IOA, U Cambridge, UK] Effects of strong gravity on X-ray spectra: observational evidence for Kerr black holes 12:00–1:30 Lunch 1:30–2:20 Steve Carlip [U California, Davis, USA] Horizon constraints and black hole entropy CONTRIBUTED TALKS (Afternoon Chair: Susan Scott) 2:20–2:45 Joey Medved [VUW, New Zealand] The quantum Kerr black hole 2:45–3:10 Stuart Wyithe [U Melbourne, Australia] Formation and evolution of early super-massive black holes 3:10–3:35 Andrew Melatos [U Melbourne, Australia] Gravitational waves from X-ray millisecond pulsars with a polar magnetic mountain 3:35–3:45 Group photo (assemble steps at MCSC main door) 3:45–4:15 Coffee 4:15–4:40 Andrew Moylan [ANU, Australia] Visualisation in the Kerr space-time using GR work bench 4:40–5:05 Sung-Won Kim [Ewha Women’s University, Korea] The Kerr metric and rotating wormhole 5:05–5:30 Anthony Lun [Monash U, Australia] On continued contraction of a rotating dust cloud to form a Kerr black hole SPECIAL TALK 5:30–6:00 Roy Kerr [U Canterbury, New Zealand] Reminiscences: a personal spin on black holes 7:00 Banquet for 7:30 pm (University Staff Club, Ilam Homestead) 5 SATURDAY 28 August PLENARY TALKS (Morning Chair: Robert Bartnik) 9:00–9:50 David Robinson [Kings College, London, UK] Four decades of black hole uniqueness theorems 9:50–10:40 Remo Ruffini [ICRA, U Rome, Italy] The ergosphere and dyadosphere of black holes 10:40–11:10 Coffee 11:10–12:00 Zoltan Perj´es[KFKI, RMKI, Budapest, Hungary] The behaviour of principal null directions of a black hole under perturbations 12:00–12:50 Matt Visser [VUW, New Zealand] Near horizon geometry for generic rotating black holes 12:50–1:00 Closing remarks 1:15–5:15 Excursion (approx) Lunch, scenic drive and visit to Rutherford’s Den, and Canterbury Ring Laser Details of Social Events WELCOME RECEPTION, Thursday 26 August Drinks and finger food will be served.