PIRSA:25100074 Conference Quantum Foundations

DOI10.48660/25100074

Conference/School: 100 Years of Quantum: Perspectives on its Past, Present, and Future

(2025). 50 years of Black Hole evaporation. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/25100074

50 years of Black Hole evaporation. Perimeter Institute, Oct. 21, 2025, https://pirsa.org/25100074 

@misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:25100074,
  doi = {10.48660/25100074},
  url = {https://pirsa.org/25100074},
  author = {},
  keywords = {Quantum Foundations},
  language = {en},
  title = {50 years of Black Hole evaporation},
  publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
  year = {2025},
  month = {oct},
  note = {PIRSA:25100074 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
}

Abstract

"In 1974, Stephen Hawking predicted that a black hole, formed by the collapse of matter like a star, should not be black, as seemed to be the prediction since the surface is an outward going null ""shell"" from which nothing can escape, but rather should emit a thermal bath of radiation with a temperature inversely proportional to the mass of the black hole. But where does this radiation come from. It cannot be from the inside of the black hole, since it would have to travel faster than light to do so? At almost the same time I predicted that in the vacuum in flat spacetime, an accelerated ""detector"" (atom,photon counter, geiger counter,...) should respond as if surrounded by a thermal bath whose temperature was proportional to its acceleration. This turned out to be closely related to Hawking's result. I will present a very personal history of the past 50 years as we have tried to understant this quantum phenomenon. What is the orgin of Black hole themodynamics? 50 years later this is still one of the big quetions in the overlap between quantum field theory and gravity."

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