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The Case for Discrete Energy Levels of a Black Hole

Jacob D. Bekenstein
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Abstract

The adiabatic invariant nature of black hole horizon area in classical gravity suggests that in quantum theory the corresponding operator has a discrete spectrum. I here develop further an algebraic approach to black hole quantization which starts from very elementary assumptions, and proceeds by exploiting symmetry. It predicts a uniformly spaced area spectrum for all charges and angular momenta. Area eigenvalues are degenerate; correspondence with black hole entropy then dictates a precise value for the interval between eigenvalues.

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Jacob D. Bekenstein. 2001-07-06. The Case for Discrete Energy Levels of a Black Hole. https://doi.org/10.1142/s0217751x02012983

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