Finite Upper Bound for the Hawking Decay Time of an Arbitrarily Large Black Hole in Anti-de Sitter Spacetime

Abstract

In an asymptotically flat spacetime of dimension d > 3 and with the Newtonian gravitational constant G, a spherical black hole of initial horizon radius r_h and mass M ~ r_h^{d-3}/G has a total decay time to Hawking emission of t_d ~ r_h^{d-1}/G ~ G^{2/(d-3)}M^{(d-1)/(d-3)} which grows without bound as the radius r_h and mass M are taken to infinity. However, in asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetime with a length scale l and with absorbing boundary conditions at infinity, the total Hawking decay time does not diverge as the mass and radius go to infinity but instead remains bounded by a time of the order of l^{d-1}/G.