We consider theories with gravity, gauge fields and scalars in four-dimensional asymptotically flat space-time. By studying the equations of motion directly we show that the attractor mechanism can work for nonsupersymmetric extremal black holes. Two conditions are sufficient for this, they are conveniently stated in terms of an effective potential involving the scalars and the charges carried by the black hole. Our analysis applies to black holes in theories with N 1 supersymmetry, as well as nonsupersymmetric black holes in theories with N 2 supersymmetry. Similar results are also obtained for extremal black holes in asymptotically anti-de Sitter space and in higher dimensions.

We prove that, in a general higher derivative theory of gravity coupled to abelian gauge fields and neutral scalar fields, the entropy and the near horizon background of a rotating extremal black hole is obtained by extremizing an entropy function which depends only on the parameters labeling the near horizon background and the electric and magnetic charges and angular momentum carried by the black hole. If the entropy function has a unique extremum then this extremum must be independent of the asymptotic values of the moduli scalar fields and the solution exhibits attractor behaviour. If the entropy function has flat directions then the near horizon background is not uniquely determined by the extremization equations and could depend on the asymptotic data on the moduli fields, but the value of the entropy is still independent of this asymptotic data. We illustrate these results in the context of two derivative theories of gravity in several examples. These include Kerr black hole, Kerr-Newman black hole, black holes in Kaluza-Klein theory, and black holes in toroidally compactified heterotic string theory.

We present a c-function for spherically symmetric, static and asymptotically flat solutions in theories of four-dimensional gravity coupled to gauge fields and moduli. The c-function is valid for both extremal and non-extremal black holes. It monotonically decreases from infinity and in the static region acquires its minimum value at the horizon, where it equals the entropy of the black hole. Higher dimensional cases, involving p-form gauge fields, and other generalisations are also discussed.

We study the entropy of extremal four dimensional black holes and five dimensional black holes and black rings is a unified framework using Sen's entropy function and dimensional reduction. The five dimensional black holes and black rings we consider project down to either static or stationary black holes in four dimensions. The analysis is done in the context of two derivative gravity coupled to abelian gauge fields and neutral scalar fields. We apply this formalism to various examples including U (1) 3 minimal supergravity.