Time Dependence of Hawking Radiation Entropy

Abstract

If a black hole starts in a pure quantum state and evaporates completely by a unitary process, the von Neumann entropy of the Hawking radiation initially increases and then decreases back to zero when the black hole has disappeared. Here numerical results are given for an approximation to the time dependence of the radiation entropy under an assumption of fast scrambling, for large nonrotating black holes that emit essentially only photons and gravitons. The maximum of the von Neumann entropy then occurs after about 53.81% of the evaporation time, when the black hole has lost about 40.25% of its original Bekenstein-Hawking (BH) entropy (an upper bound for its von Neumann entropy) and then has a BH entropy that equals the entropy in the radiation, which is about 59.75% of the original BH entropy 4 pi M_0^2, or about 7.509 M_0^2 \approx 6.268 x 10^{76}(M_0/M_sun)^2, using my 1976 calculations that the photon and graviton emission process into empty space gives about 1.4847 times the BH entropy loss of the black hole. Results are also given for black holes in initially impure states. If the black hole starts in a maximally mixed state, the von Neumann entropy of the Hawking radiation increases from zero up to a maximum of about 119.51% of the original BH entropy, or about 15.018 M_0^2 \approx 1.254 x 10^{77}(M_0/M_sun)^2, and then decreases back down to 4 pi M_0^2 = 1.049 x 10^{77}(M_0/M_sun)^2.