Minimum lifetime of a black hole

TL;DR

This paper establishes lower bounds on black hole evaporation lifetime based on energy conservation, entanglement purification, and quantum gravity assumptions, with implications for primordial black hole remnants.

Contribution

It introduces a lower bound on black hole purification time scaling as M_0^4/ħ^{3/2} and explores effects of metastability and white-hole remnants.

Findings

Purification time scales as M_0^4/ħ^{3/2}.

Including metastability extends purification time exponentially.

Negative redshift exponent suggests white-hole remnants release information slowly.

Abstract

We derive bounds on the lifetime of an evaporating black hole. The bound follows from energy conservation and purification, within the framework of `asymptotically semiclassical spacetimes'. We use the recently derived expression for the Bondi flux of Hawking radiation, together with the expression for the entanglement entropy of Hawking radiation at null infinity, to investigate the purification phase after the last semiclassical ray. We discuss the energy-cost of entanglement purification and we find a lower bound on the purification time of the black hole, which scales as $M_0^4/\hbar^{3/2}$, where $M_0$ is the initial black hole mass. Additionally, motivated by quantum gravity considerations, we include the additional assumption that a Planck mass black hole is metastable. With this assumption, we find that the the purification time is extended to be exponential in the square of the initial black hole mass, i.e. in its initial area. We find that the redshift exponent is negative in this purification phase, which indicates the existence of a white-hole remnant which releases information slowly. We comment on phenomenological implications for primordial black hole remnants.