Classical and quantum properties of two-dimensional black holes

Abstract

We investigate the physics of black hole 1 + 1 dimensions. We demonstrate how an event horizon structure can arise in two dimensions given a variety of energy-momentum tensors, cataloguing the resultant particular solutions. We examine the motion of freely falling test particles in the vicinity of such horizons and demonstrate that they generically fall through in a finite amount of proper time and an infinite amount of coordinate time. The thermodynamic and quantum properties of these solutions are also examined, and give rise to a fundamental length scale in the theory whose origin is markedly different from that of the Planck mass in the higher-dimensional case. We show that 't Hooft's prescription for cutting off eigenmodes of particle wave functions in the vicinity of the horizon is source dependent and particle-mass dependent, unlike the four-dimensional case.