Ultraspinning instability of rotating black holes

Rapidly rotating Myers-Perry black holes in d >= 6 dimensions were conjectured to be unstable by Emparan and Myers. In a previous publication, we found numerically the onset of the axisymmetric ultraspinning instability in the singly spinning Myers-Perry black hole in d = 8, 9. This threshold also signals a bifurcation to new branches of axisymmetric solutions with pinched horizons that are conjectured to connect to the black ring, black Saturn and other families in the phase diagram of stationary solutions. We firmly establish that this instability is also present in d = 6 and in d = 10, 11. The boundary conditions of the perturbations are discussed in detail for the first time, and we prove that they preserve the angular velocity and temperature of the original Myers-Perry black hole. This property is fundamental to establishing a thermodynamic necessary condition for the existence of this instability in general rotating backgrounds. We also prove a previous claim that the ultraspinning modes cannot be pure gauge modes. Finally we find new ultraspinning Gregory-Laflamme instabilities of rotating black strings and branes that appear exactly at the critical rotation predicted by the aforementioned thermodynamic criterium. The latter is a refinement of the Gubser-Mitra conjecture.