Energy extraction from higher dimensional black holes and black rings

Abstract

We analyze the energy extraction by the Penrose process in higher dimensions. Our result shows the efficiency of the process from higher dimensional black holes and black rings can be rather high compared with that in the four-dimensional Kerr black hole. In particular, if one rotation parameter vanishes, the maximum efficiency becomes infinitely large because the angular momentum is not bounded from above. We also apply a catastrophe theory to analyze the stability of black rings. It indicates a branch of black rings with higher rotational energy is unstable, which should be a different type of instability from the Gregory-Laflamme one.