Eur. Phys. J. C (2016) 76: 374
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-016-4233-3

Regular Article - Theoretical Physics

Hawking radiation is corpuscular

¹ Dipartimento di Fisica “Ettore Pancini”, Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”, Via Cintia, 80126, Naples, Italy
² Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Napoli, Via Cintia, 80126, Naples, Italy

^* e-mail: wolfgang.mueck@na.infn.it

Received: 13 June 2016
Accepted: 24 June 2016
Published online: 5 July 2016

Abstract

The total number of Hawking quanta emitted during the evaporation of a Schwarzschild black hole is proportional to the square of the initial mass or, equivalently, to the Bekenstein entropy. This simple, but little appreciated, fact is interpreted in terms of the recent discovery of black hole soft hair.