Extremal black hole throats from non extremal near horizon expansions

Abstract

We show how extremal near horizon geometries can be recovered from the non extremal near horizon expansion for smooth stationary black hole families admitting a smooth extremal limit. In Gaussian null coordinates common to the family, we apply the near extremal scaling of the surface gravity together with a radial scaling and a rescaling of Killing time. Although the physical surface gravity vanishes, the scaled horizon can retain a finite surface gravity. The extremal near horizon geometry is obtained when this scaled surface gravity is taken to zero. Under the near extremal scaling and the time rescaling, the quadratic radial term in the temporal metric component can survive, while higher radial orders vanish. Expansion through second order is therefore sufficient and is necessary whenever the quadratic term has a nonzero limiting coefficient in the chosen chart. We derive a common pullback prescription for extracting the near horizon coefficients and recover the known throats of Reissner-Nordström, Kerr, Kerr-Newman, and charged rotating Bañados-Teitelboim-Zanelli (BTZ) black holes. Neutral rotating BTZ provides a case in which the string Carroll expansion already suffices.