Instability of Near-Extremal Black Holes in N=2, d=4 Supergravity

TL;DR

This paper examines the stability of near-extremal black holes in N=2, d=4 supergravity by analyzing probe potentials and tunneling amplitudes, providing insights into black hole decay and bound state formation.

Contribution

It introduces a method to analyze black hole stability using probe potentials and quantum tunneling calculations in supergravity backgrounds.

Findings

Bound states of black holes and BPS probes are possible under certain conditions.

Quantum tunneling can lead to black hole decay via probe emission.

The wavefunction analysis quantifies tunneling probabilities.

Abstract

As a precursor to studying the bound states of multiple non-extremal black holes in $\mathcal{N}=2$, $d=4$ supergravity, we investigate the stability of a near-extremal D0-D4 black hole in the probe limit, when the parameters of the black hole solution lie within a certain regime. We determine whether it is possible to form bound states of this "core" non-extremal black hole with BPS probe particles, and whether it is possible for the "core" black hole to decay by the emission of such BPS probes either to a local minimum of the probe potential, or spatial infinity. We first carry out a qualitative analysis of the probe potential to determine when quantum tunneling of probes from the black hole is possible. We then find the wavefunction of the scattered probe by using the WKB approximation to solve the Dirac equation in the black hole background, and use this solution to compute the tunneling amplitude.