Extremal Black Holes and the Third Law of Black Hole Thermodynamics

The aim of the workshop is to explore the implications and next steps of recent advances in understanding the dynamics and thermodynamics of near extremal black holes. By bringing together researchers in this area spanning the wide range of approaches, from rigorous mathematics, perturbation theory, and numerical methods, the workshop will focus on future directions. Extremal black holes are mathematical solutions of Einstein's equations describing stationary black holes with either maximal spin or maximal charge, and these black holes have special properties such as zero temperature. Recent studies have found certain surprising aspects of their dynamics including scalar hair and an avenue for their formation from subextremal configurations that violate the third law of black hole thermodynamics. These results raise a number of questions including the stability and critical behavior of such solutions that may be addressed via other research avenues.