Black hole evaporation in a heat bath as a nonequilibrium process and its final fate

Abstract

We consider a black hole in a heat bath, and the whole system which consists of the black hole and the heat bath is isolated from outside environments. When the black hole evaporates, the Hawking radiation causes an energy flow from the black hole to the heat bath. Therefore, since no energy flow arises in an equilibrium state, the thermodynamic state of the whole system is not in equilibrium. That is, in a region around the black hole, the matter field of Hawking radiation and that of heat bath should be in a nonequilibrium state due to the energy flow. Using a simple model which reflects the nonequilibrium nature of energy flow, we find the nonequilibrium effect on a black hole evaporation as follows: if the nonequilibrium region around a black hole is not so large, the evaporation time scale of a black hole in a heat bath becomes longer than that in an empty space (a situation without heat bath), because of the incoming energy flow from the heat bath to the black hole. However, if the nonequilibrium region around a black hole is sufficiently large, the evaporation time scale in a heat bath becomes shorter than that in an empty space, because a nonequilibrium effect of the temperature difference between the black hole and heat bath appears as a strong energy extraction from the black hole by the heat bath. Further, a specific nonequilibrium phenomenon is found: a quasi-equilibrium evaporation stage under the nonequilibrium effect proceeds abruptly to a quantum evaporation stage at a semi-classical level (at black hole radius Rg > Planck length) within a very short time scale with a strong burst of energy. (Contrarily, when the nonequilibrium effect is not taken into account, a quasi-equilibrium stage proceeds smoothly to a quantum stage at Rg < Planck length without so strong an energy burst.) That is, the nonequilibrium effect of energy flow tends to make a black hole evaporation process more dynamical and to accelerate that process. Finally, on the final fate of black hole evaporation, we find that, in order to make the total entropy of the whole system increase along an evaporation process, a remnant should remain after the evaporation of black hole without respect to the size of the nonequilibrium region around the black hole. This implies that the information loss problem may disappear due to the nonequilibrium effect of energy flow.