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What Happens to a Black Hole That Radiates to “Nothing”?

-- | June 30, 2015

Question: Just to clarify, Hawking’s radiations takes place simultaneously to the black hole growing? and, then becomes dominant once the black hole stops growing? Further, having depleted with a final outburst/explosion leaving behind ” nothing ” – to what level is this “nothingness” defined? No mass,no energy,no waves, no “quantum fluctuations”?..no dark matter, no dark energy? It seems to be that it is becoming increasingly difficult to define ” nothing “?! — Simon

Answer: As you have said, “Hawking Radiation” is the theoretical process by which black holes that spin lose energy (and, therefore, mass). For black holes that lose more mass than they gain (i.e. those that do not collect a lot of mass due to accretion), in theory a black hole can lose all of its mass and “vanish”. This means that all matter associated with the black hole has been emitted as energy.

Jeff Mangum

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