A Stationary Black Hole Must be Axisymmetric in Effective Field Theory

Abstract

The black hole rigidity theorem asserts that a rotating stationary black hole must be axisymmetric. This theorem holds for General Relativity with suitable matter fields, in four or more dimensions. We show that the theorem can be extended to any diffeomorphism invariant theory of vacuum gravity, assuming that this is interpreted in the sense of effective field theory, with coupling constants determined in terms of a “UV scale”, and that the black hole solution can locally be expanded as a power series in this scale.