Are There Topological Black Hole Solitons in String Theory?

We point out that the celebrated Hawking effect of quantum instability of black holes seems to be related to a nonperturbative effect in string theory. Studying quantum dynamics of strings in the gravitational background of black holes we find classical instability due to emission of massless string excitations. The topology of a black hole seems to play a fundamental role in developing the string theory classical instability due to the effect of sigma model instantons. We argue that string theory allows for a qualitative description of black holes with very small masses and it predicts topological solitons with quantized spectrum of masses. These solitons would not decay into string massless excitations but could be pair created and may annihilate also. Semiclassical mass quantization of topological solitons in string theory is based on the argument showing existence of nontrivial zeros of beta function of the renormalization group.Comment: 12 pages, TeX, requires phyzzx.tex, published in Gen. Rel. Grav. 19 (1987) 1173; comment added on December 18, 199

Generalized entropy and Noether charge

We find an expression for the generalized gravitational entropy of Hawking in terms of Noether charge. As an example, the entropy of the Taub-Bolt spacetime is calculated.Comment: 6 pages, revtex, reference correcte

Instability of Extremal Relativistic Charged Spheres

With the question, ``Can relativistic charged spheres form extremal black holes?" in mind, we investigate the properties of such spheres from a classical point of view. The investigation is carried out numerically by integrating the Oppenheimer-Volkov equation for relativistic charged fluid spheres and finding interior Reissner-Nordstr\"om solutions for these objects. We consider both constant density and adiabatic equations of state, as well as several possible charge distributions, and examine stability by both a normal mode and an energy analysis. In all cases, the stability limit for these spheres lies between the extremal ($Q = M$) limit and the black hole limit ($R = R_+$). That is, we find that charged spheres undergo gravitational collapse before they reach $Q = M$, suggesting that extremal Reissner-Nordtr\"om black holes produced by collapse are ruled out. A general proof of this statement would support a strong form of the cosmic censorship hypothesis, excluding not only stable naked singularities, but stable extremal black holes. The numerical results also indicate that although the interior mass-energy $m(R)$ obeys the usual $m/R < 4/9$ stability limit for the Schwarzschild interior solution, the gravitational mass $M$ does not. Indeed, the stability limit approaches $R_+$ as $Q \to M$. In the Appendix we also argue that Hawking radiation will not lead to an extremal Reissner-Nordstr\"om black hole. All our results are consistent with the third law of black hole dynamics, as currently understood

Misner String Entropy

I show that gravitational entropy can be ascribed to spacetimes containing Misner strings (the gravitational analogues of Dirac strings), even in the absence of any other event horizon (or bolt) structures. This result follows from an extension of proposals for evaluating the stress-energy of a gravitational system which are motivated by the AdS/CFT correspondence.Comment: revtex, 5 pages, references added, typo correcte

Entropy of Rotating Misner String Spacetimes

Using a boundary counterterm prescription motivated by the AdS/CFT conjecture, I evaluate the energy, entropy and angular momentum of the class of Kerr-NUT/bolt-AdS spacetimes. As in the non-rotating case, when the NUT charge is nonzero the entropy is no longer equal to one-quarter of the area due to the presence of the Misner string. When the cosmological constant is also non-zero, the entropy is bounded from above.Comment: Revtex, 9 pages, 3 figure

Source Vacuum Fluctuations of Black Hole Radiance

The emergence of Hawking radiation from vacuum fluctuations is analyzed in conventional field theories and their energy content is defined through the Aharonov weak value concept. These fluctuations travel in flat space-time and carry transplanckian energies sharply localized on cisplanckian distances. We argue that these features cannot accommodate gravitational nonlinearities. We suggest that the very emission of Hawking photons from tamed vacuum fluctuations requires the existence of an exploding set of massive fields. These considerations corroborate some conjectures of Susskind and may prove relevant for the back-reaction problem and for the unitarity issue.Comment: 33 pages, ULB-TH 03/94, 5 figures not included, available on request from F.E. (problem with truncation of long lines

Quasilocal Thermodynamics of Kerr and Kerr-anti-de Sitter Spacetimes and the AdS/CFT Correspondence

We consider the quasilocal thermodynamics of rotating black holes in asymptotically flat and asymptotically anti de Sitter spacetimes. Using the minimal number of intrinsic boundary counterterms inspired by the AdS/CFT correspondence, we find that we are able to carry out an analysis of the thermodynamics of these black holes for virtually all possible values of the rotation parameter and cosmological constant that leave the quasilocal boundary well-defined, going well beyond what is possible with background subtraction methods. Specifically, we compute the quasilocal energy $E$ and angular momentum $J$ for arbitrary values of the rotation, mass and cosmological constant parameters for the 3+1 dimensional Kerr, Kerr-AdS black holes and 2+1 dimensional BTZ black hole. We perform a quasilocal stability analysis and find phase behavior that is commensurate with previous analyses carried out at infinity.Comment: Latex, 43 pages, 22 eps figures, several typos corrected, final version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Quasilocal Thermodynamics of Kerr de Sitter Spacetimes and the dS/CFT Correspondence

We consider the quasilocal thermodynamics of rotating black holes in asymptotic de Sitter spacetimes. Using the minimal number of intrinsic boundary counterterms, we carry out an analysis of the quasilocal thermodynamics of Kerr-de Sitter black holes for virtually all possible values of the mass, rotation parameter and cosmological constant that leave the quasilocal boundary inside the cosmological event horizon. Specifically, we compute the quasilocal energy, the conserved charges, the temperature and the heat capacity for the $(3+1)$-dimensional Kerr-dS black holes. We perform a quasilocal stability analysis and find phase behavior that is commensurate with previous analysis carried out through the use of Arnowitt-Deser-Misner (ADM) parameters. Finally, we investigate the non-rotating case analytically.Comment: RevTeX4, 19 pages, 11 figures, a few typos fixed, the version to be published in Phys. Rev. D6

Charge conservation and time-varying speed of light

It has been recently claimed that cosmologies with time dependent speed of light might solve some of the problems of the standard cosmological scenario, as well as inflationary scenarios. In this letter we show that most of these models, when analyzed in a consistent way, lead to large violations of charge conservation. Thus, they are severly constrained by experiment, including those where $c$ is a power of the scale factor and those whose source term is the trace of the energy-momentum tensor. In addition, early Universe scenarios with a sudden change of $c$ related to baryogenesis are discarded.Comment: 4 page

Geometrothermodynamics of the Kehagias-Sfetsos Black Hole

The application of information geometric ideas to statistical mechanics using a metric on the space of states, pioneered by Ruppeiner and Weinhold, has proved to be a useful alternative approach to characterizing phase transitions. Some puzzling anomalies become apparent, however, when these methods are applied to the study of black hole thermodynamics. A possible resolution was suggested by Quevedo et al. who emphasized the importance of Legendre invariance in thermodynamic metrics. They found physically consistent results for various black holes when using a Legendre invariant metric, which agreed with a direct determination of the properties of phase transitions from the specific heat. Recently, information geometric methods have been employed by Wei et al. to study the Kehagias-Sfetsos (KS) black hole in Horava-Lifshitz gravity. The formalism suggests that a coupling parameter in this theory plays a role analogous to the charge in Reissner-Nordstrom (RN) black holes or angular momentum in the Kerr black hole and calculation of the specific heat shows a singularity which may be interpreted as a phase transition. When the curvature of the Ruppeiner metric is calculated for such a theory it does not, however, show a singularity at the phase transition point. We show that the curvature of a particular Legendre invariant ("Quevedo") metric for the KS black hole is singular at the phase transition point. We contrast the results for the Ruppeiner, Weinhold and Quevedo metrics and in the latter case investigate the consistency of taking either the entropy or mass as the thermodynamic potential.Comment: v2: some references adde