Is there a black hole minimum mass?

Applying the first and generalised second laws of thermodynamics for a realistic process of near critical black hole formation, we derive an entropy bound, which is identical to Bekenstein's one for radiation. Relying upon this bound, we derive an absolute minimum mass $\sim0.04 \sqrt{g_{*}}m_{\rm Pl}$, where $g_{*}$ and $m_{\rm Pl}$ is the effective degrees of freedom for the initial temparature and the Planck mass, respectively. Since this minimum mass coincides with the lower bound on masses of which black holes can be regarded as classical against the Hawking evaporation, the thermodynamical argument will not prohibit the formation of the smallest classical black hole. For more general situations, we derive a minimum mass, which may depend on the initial value for entropy per particle. For primordial black holes, however, we show that this minimum mass can not be much greater than the Planck mass at any formation epoch of the Universe, as long as $g_{*}$ is within a reasonable range. We also derive a size-independent upper bound on the entropy density of a stiff fluid in terms of the energy density.Comment: 4 pages, accepted for publication in Physical Review D, minor correctio

Non-Minimal Two-Loop Inflation

We investigate the chaotic inflationary model using the two-loop effective potential of a self-interacting scalar field theory in curved spacetime. We use the potential which contains a non-minimal scalar curvature coupling and a quartic scalar self-interaction. We analyze the Lyapunov stability of de Sitter solution and show the stability bound. Calculating the inflationary parameters, we systematically explore the spectral index $n_s$ and the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$, with varying the four parameters, the scalar-curvature coupling $\xi_0$, the scalar quartic coupling $\lambda_0$, the renormalization scale $\mu$ and the e-folding number $N$. It is found that the two-loop correction on $n_s$ is much larger than the leading-log correction, which has previously been studied. We show that the model is consistent with the observation by Planck with WMAP and a recent joint analysis of BICEP2.Comment: 11pages, 7figure

An alternative attractor in gauged NJL inflation

We have investigated the attractor structure for the CMB fluctuations in composite inflation scenario within the gauged Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model. Such composite inflation represents an attractor which can not be found in a fundamental scalar model. As is known, the number of inflationary models contains the attractor classified by the $\alpha$-attractor model. It is found that the attractor inflation in the gauged NJL model corresponds to the $\alpha = 2$ case.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Hawking Radiation from Fluctuating Black Holes

Classically, black Holes have the rigid event horizon. However, quantum mechanically, the event horizon of black holes becomes fuzzy due to quantum fluctuations. We study Hawking radiation of a real scalar field from a fluctuating black hole. To quantize metric perturbations, we derive the quadratic action for those in the black hole background. Then, we calculate the cubic interaction terms in the action for the scalar field. Using these results, we obtain the spectrum of Hawking radiation in the presence of interaction between the scalar field and the metric. It turns out that the spectrum deviates from the Planck spectrum due to quantum fluctuations of the metric.Comment: 35pages, 4 figure

Z to b bbar and Chiral Currents in Higgsless Models

In this note we compute the flavor-dependent chiral-logarithmic corrections to the decay Z to b bbar in the three site Higgsless model. We compute these corrections diagrammatically in the "gaugeless" limit in which the electroweak couplings vanish. We also compute the chiral-logarithmic corrections to the decay Z to b bbar using an RGE analysis in effective field theory, and show that the results agree. In the process of this computation, we compute the form of the chiral current in the gaugeless limit of the three-site model, and consider the generalization to the N-site case. We elucidate the Ward-Takahashi identities which underlie the gaugeless limit calculation in the three-site model, and describe how the result for the Z to b bbar amplitude is obtained in unitary gauge in the full theory. We find that the phenomenological constraints on the three-site Higgsless model arising from measurements of Z to b bbar are relatively mild, requiring only that the heavy Dirac fermion be heavier than 1 TeV or so, and are satisfied automatically in the range of parameters allowed by other precision electroweak data.Comment: 19 pages, 7 embedded eps figures (additional reference added

Self-similar cosmological solutions with dark energy. II: black holes, naked singularities and wormholes

We use a combination of numerical and analytical methods, exploiting the equations derived in a preceding paper, to classify all spherically symmetric self-similar solutions which are asymptotically Friedmann at large distances and contain a perfect fluid with equation of state $p=(\gamma -1)\mu$ with $0<\gamma<2/3$. The expansion of the Friedmann universe is accelerated in this case. We find a one-parameter family of self-similar solutions representing a black hole embedded in a Friedmann background. This suggests that, in contrast to the positive pressure case, black holes in a universe with dark energy can grow as fast as the Hubble horizon if they are not too large. There are also self-similar solutions which contain a central naked singularity with negative mass and solutions which represent a Friedmann universe connected to either another Friedmann universe or some other cosmological model. The latter are interpreted as self-similar cosmological white hole or wormhole solutions. The throats of these wormholes are defined as two-dimensional spheres with minimal area on a spacelike hypersurface and they are all non-traversable because of the absence of a past null infinity.Comment: 12 pages, 19 figures, 1 table, final version to appear in Physical Review