Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 69 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Assume an asymptotically flat Reissner-Nordstrom spacetime, with , time normalized at infinity, and . PutNear , the Euclidean radial-time metric is . With , it becomesThe Euclidean black-hole regularity condition removes a conical defect only if has period . Therefore the Reissner-Nordstrom Hawking temperature isEquivalently this is the Reissner-Nordstrom horizon surface gravity divided by . The derivation assumes a nondegenerate horizon; the value zero at is obtained by the nonextremal limit, not by imposing conical regularity directly on the degenerate geometry.
For fixed nonzero , write . The horizon equation givesThe mass is increasing with , andThus the fixed-charge Reissner-Nordstrom temperature maximum occurs atThe curve starts at zero at , rises to this maximum, then falls as for large mass. During evaporation from , the mass moves from right to left: the temperature initially increases, reaches its maximum, and then decreases towards zero.
Reissner-Nordstrom temperature at fixed charge, its maximum and the evaporation direction
. Details. Under the printed thermal-emission cutoff, charged emission is absent throughout precisely when the entire mass path remains at or below the threshold:Equality is allowed because emission is assumed to require , not merely . The initial large mass ensures that the path includes the maximum.
With charge then conserved, neutral Hawking radiation lowers the mass until the system approaches the charge-preserving Reissner-Nordstrom evaporation endpoint:The limiting state is an extremal black hole, rather than a neutral zero-mass endpoint. Exact attainment in finite time is not established: near extremality , and the ideal radiation rate tends to zero. The conclusion is within the assumed thermal cutoff model, which omits nonthermal charge creation and other quantum corrections. For , the Schwarzschild temperature instead grows without bound in the extrapolated model, so no finite satisfies the stated all-the-way temperature bound.
