Black holes · Black holes , stationary states · Black hole solution , uniqueness · Black hole thermodynamics

Abstract

Brandon Carter’s lectures on the general theory of stationary black holes, reprinted here as a Golden Oldie, belong to the vivid legend of the 1972 Les Houches Summer School.1 The School was a marvelous and unforgettable experience for its youngest student participants, like me. Although Carter and a few other lecturers were just slightly older than most of us, they already enjoyed the fame of deep thinkers, great physicists and masterly mathematicians, and were well-known for their fundamental discoveries in the black hole theory. Carter’s black hole lectures at Les Houches concentrated around the characterization of the Kerr geometry as a solution of the black hole boundary problem for the vacuum Einstein equations, and the question of whether, as such, it is unique.2 This problem had occupied his mind for some time, and he already made several significant contributions that paved the road to its solution.