Hidden symmetries and black holes

Abstract

The paper contains a brief review of recent results on hidden symmetries in higher dimensional black hole spacetimes. We show how the existence of a principal CKY tensor (that is a closed conformal Killing-Yano 2-form) allows one to generate a 'tower' of Killing-Yano and Killing tensors responsible for hidden symmetries. These symmetries imply complete integrability of geodesic equations and the complete separation of variables in the Hamilton-Jacobi, Klein-Gordon, Dirac and gravitational perturbation equations in the general Kerr-NUT-(A)dS metrics. Equations of the parallel transport of frames along geodesics in these spacetimes are also integrable. © 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd.