For a future-directed causal four-momentum crossing a future Killing horizon with generator , the Lorentzian inner product obeys . With and , this is . A massive particle has strict inequality. The same bound follows in the nonextremal quasistationary regime from the Physical-process first law for a rotating black hole and the second law of black-hole mechanics. Negative Killing energy in a Penrose process is allowed, but its angular momentum must satisfy this bound.
The Physical-process first law for a rotating black hole, in four-dimensional general relativity with , is
It applies to a small neutral matter influx into an initially stationary, nonextremal black hole that settles to another stationary state. The background surface gravity and angular velocity are and , and are the Killing energy and angular momentum delivered through the event horizon. Other conserved charges are held fixed. The perturbation must be small enough that its horizon generators do not develop caustics, and all equalities below are to first order.
Let be the stationary Killing vector field normalized at infinity, and the axial Killing vector field with -periodic orbits. The horizon generator is . Choose an affine tangent and parameter with zero at the past stationary limiting section, so affine horizon-generator scaling gives, on the background horizon
The background null expansion and null shear vanish, and null twist vanishes for the hypersurface-orthogonal horizon generators. Linearizing the Null Raychaudhuri equation and using the Einstein field equations gives
The quadratic null expansion and null shear terms are second order. With background cross-sectional measure , the first-order area change is . Multiplying the evolution equation by and integrating by parts gives the first-order horizon-area response to matter flux
The boundary term vanishes: at the past limiting section, and the final stationary boundary condition gives zero expansion in the settled future. Equivalently, assume a sufficiently localized influx with the required late-time decay.
The energy and angular-momentum fluxes have signs
These correspond to the particle conventions and . Their combination is
This proves the requested Physical-process first law of black-hole mechanics. For charged infall the corresponding law contains an additional horizon-potential term ; the energy-minus-angular-momentum version assumes that work term is absent.
The Physical-process first law for a rotating black hole applies to a small perturbation of a stationary nonextremal vacuum black hole by infalling neutral matter, followed by relaxation to stationarity. Its first-order form is
Here the background horizon generator is , normalized by the unit time translation at infinity, and its surface gravity is constant, , as in the Zeroth law of black-hole mechanics. The formula neglects terms quadratic in the perturbation. Choose the process sufficiently weak that the horizon generators used below have no large caustics, and assume appropriate early and late stationary limits and convergent fluxes.
On the background Killing horizon, choose an affine generator such that ; the bifurcation or early stationary limit corresponds to . The background null expansion and null shear vanish. The null twist is zero because the perturbed event horizon is a null hypersurface. Linearizing the Null Raychaudhuri equation and using the Einstein field equations gives
The expansion squared and shear squared are second order, and the metric-trace part of the Einstein equations vanishes in this null contraction. Future stationarity sets . To first order is the derivative of the fractional area change, so, using the background area element ,
The integration by parts uses , guaranteed by the stated endpoint conditions.
The conserved stress-energy current from a Killing vector gives the absorbed mass and angular momentum, with signs
Consequently
which proves the law. Any other escaping flux must be accounted for separately when identifying these absorbed charges with the changes in the black hole. Electric-charge variations would require the corresponding potential-charge term; they are excluded in this version. The convention in Question 1 is not needed here.
For a Kerr black hole, the future horizon generator is . A future-directed causal four-momentum and a future-directed null vector satisfy in the convention. The conserved quantities from the Killing vector field are and . Therefore
For a massive particle the inequality is strict. Equality for a null particle requires momentum parallel to the horizon generator and describes the limiting tangent case. In a Penrose process the absorbed particle may have ; for this requires sufficiently negative angular momentum.
In the nonextremal test-particle regime, the Physical-process first law for a rotating black hole identifies and , so
by the second law of black-hole mechanics. The usual hypotheses of that area law, including the null energy condition and the required global regularity conditions, are understood. This thermodynamic derivation is first order in the capture process; the causal horizon flux inequality for causal matter also applies to the extremal horizon without dividing by .
The Physical-process first law for a rotating black hole states that a small flux of matter through an initially and finally stationary horizon obeys
in units . Let be an affinely parametrized horizon tangent with affine parameter on a bifurcation surface. Constancy of the surface gravity from the Zeroth law of black-hole mechanics and Gaussian null coordinates give the horizon generator
To first order about a stationary horizon, the squared expansion and shear in the Null Raychaudhuri equation are second order. The Einstein field equations reduce it to
The final stationary condition gives
Since , reversing the order of integration yields
The stress-energy current from a Killing vector gives the horizon Killing-energy flux
which proves the stated law.
For a small amount of matter falling into an initially and finally stationary rotating black hole, the Physical-process first law for a rotating black hole is
Let be an affinely parametrized horizon generator, with affine parameter at the background bifurcation surface. The horizon Killing vector field is
where constancy of is the Zeroth law of black-hole mechanics. The flux of the conserved Killing current through the horizon is
On the stationary background, expansion and shear vanish. To first order in the perturbation, the quadratic optical terms in the Null Raychaudhuri equation may be dropped, and the Einstein equation gives
Impose the teleological final condition . Integration followed by reversal of integration order gives
Comparison with the Killing-energy flux proves the stated law.