The Fate of Nucleated Black Holes in de Sitter Quantum Gravity

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Shi, Xiaoyi, Turiaci, Gustavo J., Wu, Chih-Hung
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Shi, Xiaoyi
Turiaci, Gustavo J.
Wu, Chih-Hung
author_facet Shi, Xiaoyi
Turiaci, Gustavo J.
Wu, Chih-Hung
contents The Euclidean Nariai geometry has long been proposed as the instanton describing the nucleation of maximal-mass black holes in de Sitter space. We place this interpretation on firmer footing by showing that, once an observer is included, the gravitational path integral produces the imaginary phase required for a transition rate. As a warmup, we revisit the Hawking-Moss instanton and, as a byproduct, find that scalar fields can enhance black-hole nucleation, suggesting a quantum-gravity bound on scalar potentials with de Sitter solutions. We then study the subsequent semiclassical evolution of the nucleated black hole. We show that the previously claimed "anti-evaporation" channel is unphysical, arising from a quantum state with singular horizons. In a smooth state, the black hole instead undergoes standard thermal Hawking evaporation. We verify explicit agreement with the no-boundary state and argue that this evaporation is not subject to large quantum-gravity corrections. The nucleated black hole thus evaporates completely back to the maximally-entropic empty de Sitter vacuum, making the full process a Boltzmann fluctuation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_03015
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Fate of Nucleated Black Holes in de Sitter Quantum Gravity
Shi, Xiaoyi
Turiaci, Gustavo J.
Wu, Chih-Hung
High Energy Physics - Theory
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
The Euclidean Nariai geometry has long been proposed as the instanton describing the nucleation of maximal-mass black holes in de Sitter space. We place this interpretation on firmer footing by showing that, once an observer is included, the gravitational path integral produces the imaginary phase required for a transition rate. As a warmup, we revisit the Hawking-Moss instanton and, as a byproduct, find that scalar fields can enhance black-hole nucleation, suggesting a quantum-gravity bound on scalar potentials with de Sitter solutions. We then study the subsequent semiclassical evolution of the nucleated black hole. We show that the previously claimed "anti-evaporation" channel is unphysical, arising from a quantum state with singular horizons. In a smooth state, the black hole instead undergoes standard thermal Hawking evaporation. We verify explicit agreement with the no-boundary state and argue that this evaporation is not subject to large quantum-gravity corrections. The nucleated black hole thus evaporates completely back to the maximally-entropic empty de Sitter vacuum, making the full process a Boltzmann fluctuation.
title The Fate of Nucleated Black Holes in de Sitter Quantum Gravity
topic High Energy Physics - Theory
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.03015