Nonthermal correction to black hole spectroscopy

Abstract

Area spectrum of black holes have been obtained via various methods such as quasinormal modes, adiabatic invariance and angular momentum. Among those methods, calculations were done by assuming black holes in thermal equilibrium. Nevertheless, black holes in the asymptotically flat space usually have negative specific heat and therefore tend to stay away from thermal equilibrium. Even for those black holes with positive specific heat, temperature may still not be well defined in the process of radiation, due to the back reaction of decreasing mass. Respect to these facts, it is very likely that Hawking radiation is nonthermal and the area spectrum is no longer equidistant. In this note, we would like to illustrate how the area spectrum of black holes is corrected by this nonthermal effect.