Magnetic Black Holes Are Also Unstable

Abstract

Most black holes are known to be unstable to emitting Hawking radiation (in asymptotically flat spacetime). If the black holes are non-extreme, they have positive temperature and emit thermally. If they are extremal rotating black holes, they still spontaneously emit particles like gravitons and photons. If they are extremal electrically charged black holes, they are unstable to emitting electrons or positrons. The only exception would be extreme magnetically charged black holes if there do not exist any magnetic monopoles for them to emit. However, here we show that even in this case, vacuum polarization causes all magnetic black holes to be unstable to emitting smaller magnetic black holes.