Generalized Smarr relation for Kerr-AdS black holes from improved surface integrals -: art. no. 044016

By using suitably improved surface integrals, we give a unified geometric derivation of the generalized Smarr relation for higher dimensional Kerr black holes which is valid both in flat and in anti-de Sitter backgrounds. The improvement of the surface integrals, which allows one to use them simultaneously at infinity and on the horizon, consists in integrating them along a path in solution space. Path independence of the improved charges is explicitly proved. It is also shown that the charges for higher dimensional Kerr-AdS black holes can be correctly computed from the standard Hamiltonian or Lagrangian surface integrals.