Radiation via Tunneling from a de Sitter Cosmological Horizon

TL;DR

This paper extends the tunneling picture of horizon radiation to higher-dimensional de Sitter and Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetimes, revealing thermodynamic constraints and discussing implications for the dS/CFT correspondence.

Contribution

It generalizes the tunneling formalism for horizon radiation to arbitrary dimensions and Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetimes, and explores thermodynamic and holographic implications.

Findings

Tunneling formalism applies to higher-dimensional de Sitter spaces.

Enforces a third law preventing black holes with mass above Nariai limit.

Provides insights on dS/CFT correspondence within tunneling framework.

Abstract

Hawking radiation can usefully be viewed as a semi-classical tunneling process that originates at the black hole horizon. The same basic premise should apply to de Sitter background radiation, with the cosmological horizon of de Sitter space now playing the featured role. In fact, a recent work [hep-th/0204107] has gone a long way to verifying the validity of this de Sitter-tunneling picture. In the current paper, we extend these prior considerations to arbitrary-dimensional de Sitter space, as well as Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetimes. It is shown that the tunneling formalism naturally censors against any black hole with a mass in excess of the Nariai value; thus enforcing a ``third law'' of Schwarzschild-de Sitter thermodynamics. We also provide commentary on the dS/CFT correspondence in the context of this tunneling framework.