In a recent paper hep-th/0008140 by E. Verlinde, an interesting formula has been put forward, which relates the entropy of a conformal formal field in arbitrary dimensions to its total energy and Casimir energy. This formula has been shown to hold for the conformal field theories that have AdS duals in the cases of AdS Schwarzschild black holes and AdS Kerr black holes. In this paper we further check this formula with various black holes with AdS asymptotics. For the hyperbolic AdS black holes, the Cardy-Verlinde formula is found to hold if we choose the ``massless'' black hole as the ground state, but in this case, the Casimir energy is negative. For the AdS Reissner-Nordström black holes in arbitrary dimensions and charged black holes in D=5, D=4, and D=7 maximally supersymmetric gauged supergravities, the Cardy-Verlinde formula holds as well, but a proper internal energy which corresponds to the mass of supersymmetric backgrounds must be subtracted from the total energy. It is failed to rewrite the entropy of corresponding conformal field theories in terms of the Cardy-Verlinde formula for the AdS black holes in the Lovelock gravity.

We study black holes in the Hořava-Lifshitz gravity with a parameter $λ$. For $1/3 \le λ< 3$, the black holes behave the Lifshitz black holes with dynamical exponent $0 < z \le 4$, while for $λ> 3$, the black holes behave the Reissner-Nordström type black hole in asymptotically flat spacetimes. Hence, these all are quite different from the Schwarzschild-AdS black hole of Einstein gravity. The temperature, mass, entropy, and heat capacity are derived for investigating thermodynamic properties of these black holes.

We study a class of fluctuating higher dimensional black hole configurations obtained in string theory/ $M$-theory compactifications. We explore the intrinsic Riemannian geometric nature of Gaussian fluctuations arising from the Hessian of the coarse graining entropy, defined over an ensemble of brane microstates. It has been shown that the state-space geometry spanned by the set of invariant parameters is non-degenerate, regular and has a negative scalar curvature for the rotating Myers-Perry black holes, Kaluza-Klein black holes, supersymmetric $AdS_5$ black holes, $D_1$-$D_5$ configurations and the associated BMPV black holes. Interestingly, these solutions demonstrate that the principal components of the state-space metric tensor admit a positive definite form, while the off diagonal components do not. Furthermore, the ratio of diagonal components weakens relatively faster than the off diagonal components, and thus they swiftly come into an equilibrium statistical configuration. Novel aspects of the scaling property suggest that the brane-brane statistical pair correlation functions divulge an asymmetric nature, in comparison with the others. This approach indicates that all above configurations are effectively attractive and stable, on an arbitrary hyper-surface of the state-space manifolds. It is nevertheless noticed that there exists an intriguing relationship between non-ideal inter-brane statistical interactions and phase transitions. The ramifications thus described are consistent with the existing picture of the microscopic CFTs. We conclude with an extended discussion of the implications of this work for the physics of black holes in string theory.

This is a brief summary of the most important hairy black hole solutions in 3+1 spacetime dimensions discovered over the last 25 years. These were first of all the Einstein-Yang-Mills black holes and their various generalizations including the Higgs field, the dilaton and the curvature corrections, and also the Skyrme black holes. More recently, these were black holes supporting a scalar field violating the energy conditions or non-minimally coupled to gravity, and also spinning black holes with massive complex scalar hair. Finally, these were black holes with massive graviton hair.

In the last decade, a combination of high sensitivity, high spatial resolution observations and of coordinated multi-wavelength surveys has revolutionized our view of extra-galactic black hole (BH) astrophysics. We now know that supermassive black holes reside in the nuclei of almost every galaxy, grow over cosmological times by accreting matter, interact and merge with each other, and in the process liberate enormous amounts of energy that influence dramatically the evolution of the surrounding gas and stars, providing a powerful self-regulatory mechanism for galaxy formation. The different energetic phenomena associated to growing black holes and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), their cosmological evolution and the observational techniques used to unveil them, are the subject of this chapter. In particular, I will focus my attention on the connection between the theory of high-energy astrophysical processes giving rise to the observed emission in AGN, the observable imprints they leave at different wavelengths, and the methods used to uncover them in a statistically robust way. I will show how such a combined effort of theorists and observers have led us to unveil most of the SMBH growth over a large fraction of the age of the Universe, but that nagging uncertainties remain, preventing us from fully understating the exact role of black holes in the complex process of galaxy and large-scale structure formation, assembly and evolution.

Black holes represent outstanding astrophysical laboratories to test the strong gravity regime, since alternative theories of gravity may predict black hole solutions whose may differ distinctly from those of General Relativity. When higher curvature terms are included in the gravitational action as, for instance, in the form of the Gauss-Bonnet term coupled to a scalar field, scalarized black holes result. Here we discuss several types of scalarized black holes and some of their properties.

In this Chapter we would like to review a "~phenomenological~" approach taking into account the most fundamental feature of string theory or, more in general, of quantum gravity, whatever its origin, which is the existence of a minimal length in the space-time fabric. This length is generally identified with the Planck length, or the string length, but it could be also much longer down to the TeV region. A simple and effective way to keep track of the effects the minimal length in black hole geometries is to solve the Einstein equations with an energy momentum tensor describing non point-like matter. The immediate consequence is the absence of any curvature singularity. Where textbook solutions of the Einstein equations loose any physical meaning because of infinite tidal forces, we find a de Sitter vacuum core of high, but finite, energy density and pressure. An additional improvement regards the final stage of the black hole evaporation leading to a vanishing Hawking temperature even in the neutral, non-rotating, case. In spite of th simplicity of this model we are able to describe the final stage of the black hole evaporation, resulting in a cold remnant with a degenerate, extremal, horizon of radius of the order of the minimal length. In this chapter we shall describe only neutral, spherically symmetric, regular black holes although charged, rotating and higher dimensional black holes can be found in the literature.

In this chapter we review the current theoretical state of the art of small black holes at the LHC. We discuss the production mechanism for small non thermal black holes at the LHC and discuss new signatures due to a possible discrete mass spectrum of these black holes.

This is the second lecture of `RAGtime' series on electrodynamical effects near black holes. We will summarize the basic equations of relativistic electrodynamics in terms of spin-coefficient (Newman-Penrose) formalism. The aim of the lecture is to present important relations that hold for exact electro-vacuum solutions and to exhibit, in a pedagogical manner, some illustrative solutions and useful approximation approaches. First, we concentrate on weak electromagnetic fields and we illustrate their structure by constructing the magnetic and electric lines of force. Gravitational field of the black hole assumes axial symmetry, whereas the electromagnetic field may or may not share the same symmetry. With these solutions we can investigate the frame-dragging effects acting on electromagnetic fields near a rotating black hole. These fields develop magnetic null points and current sheets. Their structure suggests that magnetic reconnection takes place near the rotating black hole horizon. Finally, the last section will be devoted to the transition from test-field solution to exact solutions of coupled Einstein-Maxwell equations. New effects emerge within the framework of exact solutions: the expulsion of the magnetic flux out of the black-hole horizon depends on the intensity of the imposed magnetic field.

Black holes attract gaseous material from the surrounding environment. Cosmic plasma is largely ionized and magnetized because of electric currents flowing in the highly conductive environment near black holes; the process of accretion then carries the magnetic flux onto the event horizon, $r\simeq R_+$. On the other hand, magnetic pressure acts against accretion. It can not only arrest the inflow but it can even push the plasma away from the black hole if the magnetic repulsion prevails. The black hole does not hold the magnetic field by itself. In this contribution we show an example of an equatorial outflow driven by a large scale magnetic field. We initiate our computations with a spherically symmetric distribution of gas, which flows onto the domain from a large distance, $r\gg R_+$. After the flow settles in a steady (Bondi) solution, we impose an axially symmetric configuration of a uniform (Wald) magnetic field aligned with the rotation axis of the black hole. Then we evolve the initial configuration numerically by employing the MHD code that approaches the force-free limit of a perfectly conducting fluid. We observe how the magnetic lines of force start accreting with the plasma while an equatorial intermittent outflow develops and goes on ejecting some material away from the black hole.