We study the near-horizon geometry of generic Killing horizons constructing suitable coordinates and taking the appropriate scaling limit. We are able to show that the geometry will always show an enhancement of symmetries, and, in the extremal case, will develop a causally disconnected “throat” as expected. We analyze the implications of this to the Kerr/CFT conjecture and the attractor mechanism. We are also able to construct a set of special (pure) spinors associated with the horizon structure using their interpretation as maximally isotropic planes. The structure generalizes the usual reduced holonomy manifold in an interesting way and may be fruitful to the search of new types of compactification backgrounds.

• Received 17 March 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.89.104031