Black holes in symmetric spaces : anti-de Sitter spaces

Using symmetric space techniques, we show that closed orbits of the Iwasawa subgroups of $SO(2,l-1)$ naturally define singularities of a black hole causal structure in anti-de Sitter spaces in $l\ge 3$ dimensions. In particular, we recover for $l=3$ the non-rotating massive BTZ black hole. The method presented here is very simple and in principle generalizable to any semi-simple symmetric space.