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Hawking Radiation & Black Hole Thermodynamics

Black holes as thermal objects with temperature ~ 1/M and entropy ~ area.

A Schwarzschild black hole of mass $M$ has event horizon at $r_s = 2GM/c^2$ and is characterized by surface gravity $\kappa = c^4/(4GM)$. Hawking (1974) showed quantum vacuum near the horizon emits blackbody radiation at the Hawking temperature

$$T_H = \frac{\hbar c^3}{8\pi G M k_B}.$$

For a solar-mass BH this is $\sim 60$ nK — negligible. For a $10^{12}$ kg primordial BH, $T_H \sim 10^{12}$ K, and the BH evaporates explosively.

The four laws of black-hole thermodynamics (Bardeen, Carter, Hawking) are formal analogs of ordinary thermodynamics, identifying surface gravity with temperature and horizon area with entropy:

$$S_{\rm BH} = \frac{k_B c^3 A}{4 G \hbar} \quad \text{(Bekenstein–Hawking)}.$$

An "$N = 1$" Schwarzschild BH of mass $M$ has $S \sim 10^{77}$ — vastly more than ordinary matter of the same mass. This vast entropy is the seed of the information paradox: where does the infalling information go when the BH evaporates? Modern resolutions involve entanglement, islands, and the AdS/CFT correspondence.

Interactive: $T_H$ and lifetime vs mass

Quiz

1. Hawking temperature scales with mass as:
2. Bekenstein–Hawking entropy scales with horizon:
3. Solar-mass black hole Hawking temperature is approximately:
4. Black-hole evaporation lifetime scales as:
5. The information paradox asks:
6. The Bekenstein bound on entropy in a region of radius $R$ and energy $E$: