Black-hole radiation, the fundamental area unit, and the spectrum of particle species

Abstract

Bekenstein and Mukhanov have put forward the idea that, in a quantum theory of gravity a black hole should have a discrete mass spectrum with a concomitant {\it discrete} line emission. We note that a direct consequence of this intriguing prediction is that, compared with blackbody radiation, black-hole radiance is {\it less} entropic. We calculate the ratio of entropy emission rate from a quantum black hole to the rate of black-hole entropy decrease, a quantity which, according to the generalized second law (GSL) of thermodynamics, should be larger than unity. Implications of our results for the GSL, for the value of the fundamental area unit in quantum gravity, and for the spectrum of massless particles in nature are discussed.

4 pages

References in corpus (2)

• Best Approximation to a Reversible Process in Black-Hole Physics and the Area Spectrum of Spherical Black Holes
• Gravitation, the Quantum, and Bohr's Correspondence Principle

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Do black holes radiate?
• Discrete Black-Hole Radiation and the Information Loss Paradox
• A note on black hole entropy, area spectrum, and evaporation