THE LOVELOCK BLACK HOLES

Abstract

Lovelock theory is a natural extension of Einstein theory of gravity to higher dimensions, and it is of great interest in theoretical physics as it describes a wide class of models. In particular, it describes string theory inspired ultraviolet corrections to Einstein–Hilbert action, while admits the Einstein general relativity and the so-called Chern–Simons theories of gravity as particular cases. Here, we give an introduction to the black hole solutions of Lovelock theory and analyze their most important properties. These solutions can be regarded as generalizations of the Boulware–Deser solution of Einstein–Gauss–Bonnet gravity, which we discuss in detail here. We briefly discuss some recent progress in understanding these and other solutions, like topological black holes that represent black branes of the theory, and vacuum thin-shell wormhole-like geometries that connect two different asymptotically de Sitter spaces. We also make some comments on solutions with time-like naked singularities.