Classical black holes and event horizons are highly non-local objects, defined in relation to the causal past of future null infinity. Alternative, quasilocal characterizations of black holes are often used in mathematical, quantum, and numerical relativity. These include apparent, killing, trapping, isolated, dynamical, and slowly evolving horizons. All of these are closely associated with two-surfaces of zero outward null expansion. This paper reviews the traditional definition of black holes and provides an overview of some of the more recent work on alternative horizons.

We investigate the generic behaviour of marginally trapped tubes (roughly time-evolved apparent horizons) using simple, spherically symmetric examples of dust and scalar field collapse/accretion onto pre-existing black holes. We find that given appropriate physical conditions the evolution of the marginally trapped tube may be either null, timelike, or spacelike and further that the marginally trapped two-sphere cross-sections may either expand or contract in area. Spacelike expansions occur when the matter falling into a black hole satisfies ρ − P ≤ 1/A, where A is the area of the horizon while ρ and P are respectively the density and pressure of the matter. Timelike evolutions occur when (ρ − P ) is greater than this cut-off and so would be expected to be more common for large black holes. Physically they correspond to horizon "jumps" as extreme conditions force the formation of new horizons outside of the old.

We study the geometry and dynamics of both isolated and dynamical trapping horizons by considering the allowed variations of their foliating two-surfaces. This provides a common framework that may be used to consider both their possible evolutions and their deformations as well as derive the well-known flux laws. Using this framework, we unify much of what is already known about these objects as well as derive some new results. In particular we characterize and study the "almost-isolated" trapping horizons known as slowly evolving horizons. It is for these horizons that a dynamical first law holds and this is analogous and closely related to the Hawking-Hartle formula for event horizons. *

We study the mechanics of Hayward's trapping horizons, taking isolated horizons as equilibrium states. Zeroth and second laws of dynamic horizon mechanics come from the isolated and trapping horizon formalisms, respectively. We derive a dynamical first law by introducing a new perturbative formulation for dynamic horizons in which "slowly evolving" trapping horizons may be viewed as perturbatively nonisolated.

The popular Hamilton-Jacobi method first proposed by Brown and York for defining quasilocal quantities such as energy for spatially bound regions assumes that the timelike boundary is orthogonal to the foliation of the spacetime. Such a restriction is undesirable for both theoretical and computational reasons. We remove the orthogonality assumption and show that it is more natural to focus on the foliation of the timelike boundary rather than the foliation of the entire four dimensional bound region. Reference spacetimes which define additional terms in the action are discussed in detail. To demonstrate this new formulation, we calculate the quasilocal energies seen by observers who are moving with respect to a Schwarzschild black hole.