The Case for Discrete Energy Levels of a Black Hole

Abstract

The adiabatic invariant nature of black hole horizon area in classical gravity suggests that in quantum theory the corresponding operator has a discrete spectrum. I here develop further an algebraic approach to black hole quantization which starts from very elementary assumptions, and proceeds by exploiting symmetry. It predicts a uniformly spaced area spectrum for all charges and angular momenta. Area eigenvalues are degenerate; correspondence with black hole entropy then dictates a precise value for the interval between eigenvalues.

Invited talk at "2001: A Spacetime Odyssey", inaugural conference of the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics, May 22-25, 2001, 11 pages, LaTeX209; to appear in the proceedings published by World Scientific Publishing

References in corpus (1)

• Quantum-mechanical model of the Kerr-Newman black hole

Cited by in corpus (9)

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• Quantum Spectrum for a Kerr-Newman Black Hole
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• Varying Constants, Black Holes, and Quantum Gravity
• Spacetime Foam Model of the Schwarzschild Horizon
• On the Nature of Black Holes in Loop Quantum Gravity
• Spectroscopy of an AdS Reissner-Nordstrom black hole
• Varying Fine Structure Constant and Black Hole Physics