Black holes as antimatter factories

Abstract

We consider accretion of matter onto a low mass black hole surrounded by ionized medium. We show that, because of higher mobility of protons than electrons, the black hole would acquire positive electric charge. If the black hole's mass is about or below $10^{20}$ g, the electric field at the horizon can reach the critical value which leads to vacuum instability and electron--positron pair production by the Schwinger mechanism. Since the positrons are ejected by the emergent electric field, while electrons are back--captured, the black hole operates as an antimatter factory which effectively converts protons into positrons.

5 pages, no figure. v2: with discussion section not included in the refereed version

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