Particle emission rates from a black hole. II. Massless particles from a rotating hole

Abstract

The calculations of the first paper of this series (for nonrotating black holes) are extended to the emission rates of massless or nearly massless particles from a rotating hole and the consequent evolution of the hole. The power emitted increases as a function of the angular momentum of the hole, for a given mass, by factors of up to 13.35 for neutrinos, 107.5 for photons, and 26 380 for gravitons. Angular momentum is emitted several times faster than energy, so a rapidly rotating black hole spins down to a nearly nonrotating state before most of its mass has been given up. The third law of black-hole mechanics is proved for small perturbations of an uncharged hole, showing that it is impossible to spin up a hole to the extreme Kerr configuration. If a hole is rotating fast enough, its area and entropy initially increase with time (at an infinite rate for the extreme Kerr configuration) as heat flows into the hole from particle pairs created in the ergosphere. As the rotation decreases, the thermal emission becomes dominant, drawing heat out of the hole and decreasing its area. The lifetime of a black hole of a given mass varies with the initial rotation by a factor of only 2.0 to 2.7 (depending upon which particle species are emitted). If a nonrotating primordial black hole with initial mass 5 × ${10}^{14}$ g would have just decayed away within the present age of the universe, a hole created maximally rotating would have just died if its initial mass were about 7 × ${10}^{14}$ g. Primordial black holes created with larger masses would still exist today, but they would have a maximum rotation rate determined uniquely by the present mass. If they are small enough today to be emitting many hadrons, they are predicted to be very nearly nonrotating.