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Physics
PF Gold
P: 6,166
 Quote by PeterDonis the 2-sphere at the EH, where r = 2M in Schwarzschild coordinates, is not spacelike; it's null. So it is physically impossible to perform the comparison I described using a 2-sphere at the EH, and there is therefore no way to physically define the K factor (or the J factor, for that matter) at the EH.
On re-reading, I should re-state this. The 2-sphere at the EH can still be said to have a physical "area", which is 4M^2 in geometric units. So it may not be technically correct to say the 2-sphere itself is null. (When I compute the norms of the tangential unit vectors, I don't get zero at r = 2M; the norms are still positive, so the unit vectors are still spacelike, assuming I'm doing the computation right).

However, there can't be a static 2-sphere "hovering" at the EH, because the EH, as a surface in spacetime, is a null surface, and therefore there can't be a surface of "constant time" that is orthogonal to the EH, in which the 2-sphere could be said to lie, and in which the area of the 2-sphere could be compared with the volume between it and a neighboring 2-sphere. So the main point in what I said above still holds: it's impossible to do the physical measurement at the EH that I was using to define the K factor.

I should also note that the above does not entirely apply to the J factor; since there are still timelike worldlines passing through the EH, it is still possible to define a "gravitational redshift" factor there, for an infalling observer. However, this factor cannot apply to a static, "hovering" observer at the EH, since as we've seen there can't be one. So what I said does apply to the J factor for static observers.