We study the corpuscular model of an evaporating black hole consisting of a
specific quantum state for a large number N of self-confined bosons. The
single-particle spectrum contains a discrete ground state of energy m
(corresponding to toy gravitons forming the black hole), and a gapless
continuous spectrum (to accommodate for the Hawking radiation with energy
ω>m). Each constituent is in a superposition of the ground state and a
Planckian distribution at the expected Hawking temperature in the continuum. We
first find that, assuming the Hawking radiation is the leading effect of the
internal scatterings, the corresponding N-particle state can be collectively
described by a single-particle wave-function given by a superposition of a
total ground state with energy M=Nm and a Planckian distribution for E>M
at the same Hawking temperature. From this collective state, we compute the
partition function and obtain an entropy which reproduces the usual area law
with a logarithmic correction precisely related with the Hawking component. By
means of the horizon wave-function for the system, we finally show the
backreaction of modes with ω>m reduces the Hawking flux. Both
corrections, to the entropy and to the Hawking flux, suggest the evaporation
properly stops for vanishing mass, if the black hole is in this particular
quantum state.Comment: PDFLaTeX, 15 pages, 2 figure. Version to appear in PR