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# Boundary and expansion effects on two-pion correlation functions in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

## I Introduction

In recent years, much experimental effort has been devoted to the production of a state of matter under the extreme conditions of high baryonic densities and/or temperatures in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The main drive for such effort is the expectation to produce the so called quark-gluon plasma (QGP) where the fundamental QCD degrees of freedom are not confined within a single nucleon but rather over a larger volume of the order of the dimensions of a nucleus. While the properties of the QGP have been the subject of intense theoretical study and debate, much less attention has been paid to the hadronization process, or to the properties of hadronic matter at high temperatures and densities. An understanding of these is needed for a correct interpretation of the signals originating from the different stages of the collision, both for a clear distinction of a possible QGP formation but also as an interesting subject of study on its own.

The most abundantly produced hadrons in relativistic heavy-ion collisions are pions. Typically, the number of pions produced one unit around central rapidity in central Au+Au collisions at energies of order 10$`A`$ GeV is $`dN_\pi /dy300`$. Under the assumption that the transverse dimensions of the system formed at freeze out are of order of the transverse size of an Au nucleus and that the typical pion formation time is of order 1 fm, this multiplicity implies that the average pion separation $`d`$ at freeze out in the central rapidity region is of order $`d0.6`$ fm which is less than the average range of the pion strong interaction, $`d_s1.4`$ fm.

Some of the possible consequences of this large pion density produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions where first studied by Shuryak  who coined the term pion liquid to refer to the situation where the pion system could not be thought of as existing as a hadron gas but rather, that its properties resembled more those of a liquid of quasipions. In particular, as one of the main characteristics of liquids is the appearance of a surface tension, such state of hadron matter could give rise to a confining boundary that acted as a reflecting surface that could affect the pion distributions just before freeze out. More recently , it has been proposed that the equation of state of pion matter could give rise to a phase transition from a gas phase to a more dense phase as the temperature rises close to the temperatures expected to be achieved in relativistic heavy-ion collisions, thus introducing the concept of a hot pion liquid.

From a phenomenological point of view and disregarding the details of the reflection processes (which presumably depend on the energy of the incident particle), the development of a surface tension can be incorporated by imposing a sharp boundary for the pion wave functions to evolve just before freeze out. As a consequence of the finite size of the system during this stage of its evolution, the energy states form a discrete set.

An important difference between statistical systems with and without a boundary is the different density of states at increasing energies, being larger in the case of the former, as illustrated in Fig. 1. The density of states of a finite system approaches that of an unbound one as the size of the system is increased. The above characteristic implies that the transverse inclusive spectrum calculated within a boundary model will exhibit a concave shape at high transverse momentum and could potentially explain the increase of the pion transverse distribution  in this kinematical region . The increase of the pion distribution at low transverse momentum could also be explained within the same context by considering the finite chemical potential associated with the mean pion multiplicity per event .

More recently, it was realized that an important missing ingredient in the description of the transverse pion spectra within a boundary model was the proper inclusion of hydrodynamical expansion. The phenomenological description in terms of a bound, expanding pion system has been named the expanding pion liquid model and was developed in Refs.  and successfully applied to the description of the experimental mid-rapidity, transverse pion spectra in central Au+Au collisions at 11.6$`A`$ GeV/c . A further natural test ground for the model is the study of multiparticle correlations, in particular two-pion correlations.

A step in this direction has been taken in Ref.  where the effects of a pure boundary model (i.e. without collective expansion) have been introduced in the description of the two-pion correlation function. In this work, we incorporate also the effects of hydrodynamical expansion in the calculation of the two-pion correlation function.

It is well known that in the study of two-particle correlation functions, the effective size of a system without a boundary decreases as the average pair momentum is increased  when considering the effects of hydrodynamical expansion. Physically, this effect is due to the fact that as the average pair momentum increases, the particles in the pair are more likely to be emitted from points close in space. This can also be regarded as the introduction of a further correlation in phase space for the emitted particles that effectively reduces the size of the emission region . On the other hand, as emphasized in Ref. , for emission volumes of order of a few average pair wavelengths it is imperative to consider a full quantum density matrix in the description of particle distributions since as the average pair momentum decreases, the correlation region as a function of relative momentum increases thus effectively reducing the apparent size of the system. As we will show in this work, these two competing effects produce a maximum in the effective size of the system at a finite value of the average pair momentum.

This paper is organized as follows: Section II is devoted to a recollection of the description of a bound, expanding pion system at freeze out. In Sec. III, we write the two-pion correlation function in terms of the discrete set of eigenfunctions for this kind of systems. In Sec. IV we perform a systematic analysis of the two-pion correlation function in terms of the different parameters involved. We pay particular attention to the behavior of the effective system’s radius as a function of the average pair momentum comparing the results to what would be expected in the case of an expanding and unbound system and a pure boundary model. Finally we conclude and discuss our results in Sec. V.

## II The expanding pion liquid

When the system of pions can be considered as confined, its wave functions satisfy a given condition a the boundary. In order to compare the results with the observed particle distributions, the shape of the assumed confining volume could play an important role. It has long been known that the particle momentum distributions are somewhat forward-backward peaked, particularly at energies of the SPS , even in the case of central collisions. Nevertheless, for the sake of simplicity and concreteness, here we will assume that the confining volume is spherical. Comparison of the model with data will become better in the central rapidity region where an asymmetry between longitudinal and transverse expansion is less important than in the fragmentation region. Let us emphasize that an spherically symmetric model is not essential to the basic physics discussed here and can thus be relaxed at the expense of additional computing time. This could however be necessary when comparing to data away from mid-rapidity.

To incorporate the effects of an hydrodynamical flow, we notice that this ordered motion can be represented by a four-velocity field $`u^\mu =\gamma (r)[1,𝐯(r)]`$, where $`\gamma `$ is the Lorentz-gamma factor and $`𝐯(r)`$ is the velocity vector. This field represents a redistribution of momentum in each of the fluid cells, as viewed from a given reference frame (the center of mass in this case), becoming centered around the momentum associated with the velocity of the fluid element. This behavior can be described by the substitution $`p^\mu p^\mu mu^\mu `$, where $`m`$ is the pion mass. The term $`mu^\mu `$ represents the collective momentum of the given pion fluid element.

The eigenfunctions of the confined, expanding system of pions are thus obtained as the solutions to the equation

$`\{[i{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}m\gamma (r)]^2`$ $`+`$ $`\left[im\gamma (r)𝐯(r)\right]^2`$ (1)
$`+`$ $`m^2\}\psi (𝐫,t)=0`$ (2)
where we look for the stationary states subject to the boundary condition

$`\psi (|𝐫|=R,t)=0.`$ (3)
We consider a parametrization of the velocity vector $`𝐯(r)`$ that scales with the distance from the center of the fireball

$`𝐯(r)=\beta {\displaystyle \frac{r}{R}}\widehat{}r,`$ (4)
where the parameter $`0<\beta <1`$ represents the surface fireball hydrodynamical velocity. Correspondingly, the explicit expression for $`\gamma (r)`$ becomes

$`\gamma (r)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{1\beta ^2r^2/R^2}}}.`$ (5)
Since Eq. (2), with the gamma factor given by Eq. (5), can only be solved numerically, we resort to approximate the function $`\gamma `$ by the first terms of its Taylor expansion

$`\gamma (r)1+{\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{r^2}{R^2}},`$ (6)
which is valid for not too large values of $`\beta `$. With this approximation, Eq. (2) becomes an equation for particles moving in a spherical harmonic well with rigid boundaries and can be solved analytically. The stationary states are

$`\psi _{nlm^{}}(𝐫,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{A_{nl}}{\sqrt{2E_{nl}}}}e^{iE_{nl}t+im\beta r^2/(2R)}Y_l^m^{}(\widehat{𝐫})e^{\alpha _{nl}^2r^2/2}r^l`$ (7)
$`\times `$ $`{}_{1}{}^{}F_{1}^{}({\displaystyle \frac{(l+3/2)}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon _{nl}^2}{4\alpha _{nl}^2}},l+3/2;\alpha _{nl}^2r^2),`$ (8)
where $`{}_{1}{}^{}F_{1}^{}`$ is a confluent hypergeometric function and $`Y_l^m^{}`$ is a spherical harmonic. The quantities $`A_{nl}`$ are the normalization constants and are found from the condition

$`{\displaystyle d^3r\psi _{nlm^{}}^{}(𝐫,t)\frac{\stackrel{}{}}{t}\psi _{nlm^{}}(𝐫,t)}=1.`$ (9)
The parameters $`\alpha _{nl}`$ and $`\epsilon _{nl}`$ are related to the energy eigenvalues $`E_{nl}`$ by

$`\alpha _{nl}^4`$ $`=`$ $`m(E_{nl}m)\beta ^2/R^2,`$ (10)
$`\epsilon _{nl}^2`$ $`=`$ $`E_{nl}(E_{nl}2m),`$ (11)
with $`E_{nl}`$ given as the solutions to

$`{}_{1}{}^{}F_{1}^{}({\displaystyle \frac{(l+3/2)}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon _{nl}^2}{4\alpha _{nl}^2}},l+3/2;\alpha _{nl}^2R^2)=0.`$ (12)
Equation (8), along with the energy eigenvalues and definitions in Eqs. (11), (12), constitute the set of (properly normalized) eigenfunctions in terms of which the various multi-particle distributions can be expressed. The system’s finite size and the strength of the collective expansion are given in terms of the parameters $`R`$ and $`\beta `$, respectively. In order to further proceed, it is necessary to specify the kind of ensemble that describes the statistical properties of the pion system.

## III Two-pion correlation function

In order to describe the situation where equilibrium has been attained (which we assume here), the proper statistical distribution for the ensemble is thermal. For the purposes of this section, we closely follow Ref.  to where we refer the reader for details. Let $`\lambda `$ represent the set of quantum numbers $`\{nlm^{}\}`$. The corresponding occupation number $`N_\lambda `$ for a given state is written as

$`N_\lambda ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}(E_\lambda \mu )/T1}},`$ (13)
where $`T`$ is the system’s temperature and $`\mu `$ the chemical potential, related to the average total multiplicity $`N`$ by

$`N={\displaystyle \underset{\lambda }{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}(E_\lambda \mu )/T1}}.`$ (14)
Let $`\psi _\lambda (𝐩)`$ represent the Fourier transformed wave function for the state with quantum numbers $`\lambda `$, namely

$`\psi _\lambda (𝐩)={\displaystyle d^3re^{i𝐩r}\psi _\lambda (𝐫)}.`$ (15)
With the normalization adopted in Eq. (8), the one-pion momentum distribution can be written as

$`P_1(𝐩)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3N}{d^3p}}`$ (16)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda }{}}2E_\lambda N_\lambda \psi _\lambda ^{}(𝐩)\psi _\lambda (𝐩).`$ (17)
Similarly, and under the assumption of a complete factorization of the two-particle density matrix, the two pion momentum distribution can be written as

$`P_2(𝐩_1,𝐩_2)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^6N}{d^3p_1d^3p_2}}`$ (18)
$`=`$ $`P_1(𝐩_1)P_1(𝐩_2)`$ (19)
$`+`$ $`\left|{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda }{}}2E_\lambda N_\lambda \psi _\lambda ^{}(𝐩_1)\psi _\lambda (𝐩_2)\right|^2,`$ (20)
from where the two-pion correlation function $`C_2`$ can be written, in terms of $`P_1`$ and $`P_2`$, as

$`C_2(𝐩_1,𝐩_2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{P_2(𝐩_1,𝐩_2)}{P_1(𝐩_1)P_1(𝐩_2)}}`$ (21)
$`=`$ $`1+{\displaystyle \frac{\left|{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda }{}}E_\lambda N_\lambda \psi _\lambda ^{}(𝐩_1)\psi _\lambda (𝐩_2)\right|^2}{{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda }{}}E_\lambda N_\lambda \left|\psi _\lambda (𝐩_1)\right|^2{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda }{}}E_\lambda N_\lambda \left|\psi _\lambda (𝐩_2)\right|^2}}.`$ (22)
Notice that as a consequence of the factorization assumption, the correlation function is such that $`C_2(𝐩,𝐩)=2`$. This is usually referred to as the completely chaotic pion production scenario , which is the situation expected to occur in a heavy ion collision, given the considerable rescattering experienced by pions in the production region. In contrast, if the particles were produced completely coherently, they would occupy a pure quantum state and the two-pion momentum distribution would be simply the product of two single-pion momentum distributions, leading to the absence of the HBT effect.

## IV The effective radius

Armed with the eigenfunctions describing the confined and expanding pion system, Eq. (8) and with the explicit expression for the two-pion correlation function in Eq. (LABEL:correl), it is possible to perform an analysis to describe the behavior of $`C_2`$ as a function of the several variables and parameters involved. For the spherically symmetric problem described here, the correlation function depends on the angle between the pion pair momenta. For the sake of simplicity, let us consider the case in which both momenta $`𝐩_1`$ and $`𝐩_2`$ are parallel. In this case, the summation in the numerator of the second term in Eq. (LABEL:correl) can be simplified, with the aid of the addition theorem for the spherical harmonics

$`{\displaystyle \underset{m^{}=l}{\overset{l}{}}}Y_l^m^{}(\widehat{}p_1)Y_l^m^{}(\widehat{}p_2)={\displaystyle \frac{2l+1}{4\pi }}.`$ (24)
Figure 2 shows the behavior of $`C_2(q)`$ as a function of $`q`$, the magnitude of the pair momentum difference $`𝐪=𝐩_2𝐩_1`$. Figure 2$`a`$ shows $`C_2(q)`$ for a fixed value of the magnitude $`K=500`$ MeV of the average pair momentum $`𝐊=(𝐊_2+𝐊_1)/2`$ for two values of the system radius $`R=6`$, $`10`$ fm. Notice that for a fixed $`K`$ the width of the correlation function decreases as $`R`$ is increased. Figure 2$`b`$ shows $`C_2(q)`$ for a fixed value of $`R=6`$ fm and three values of $`K=300`$, $`500`$, $`700`$ MeV. For the chosen values of $`K`$, the width of the correlation function increases as $`K`$ is increased. Figure 2$`c`$ shows $`C_2(q)`$ for a fixed value of $`R=6`$ fm and three values of $`K=50`$, $`100`$, $`200`$ MeV. Notice that in this case, the width of the correlation function decreases as $`K`$ is increased. In all these figures, the temperature and surface expansion velocity have been held fixed to $`T=120`$ MeV and $`\beta =0.5c`$. These values for $`T`$ and $`\beta `$ are chosen in accordance to the analysis in Ref.  where a correlation between the transverse flow velocity and the freeze out temperature is found in such a way that higher temperatures imply lower expansion velocities and vice versa. Since, at least for AGS energies, not too high temperatures are reached during the collision, the above value for $`T`$ implies that for $`\beta `$, thus, the free parameters for the model can be taken either as $`R`$ and $`T`$ or $`R`$ and $`\beta `$.

It is also worth mentioning that in both of the above figures, the value of the chemical potential $`\mu `$ appearing in Eq. (LABEL:correl) has been fixed to $`\mu =0`$. The behavior of $`C_2(q)`$ for different values of the chemical potential is shown in Fig. 3. Notice that varying the chemical potential up to values below the onset of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC)  does not introduce changes in the shape of the correlation function. This can be understood by noticing that even when we increase the system’s density and thus the value of $`\mu `$, we are not introducing any further correlation among the bound but otherwise non-interacting set of particles. This situation changes when, for a given temperature and system’s size, $`\mu `$ is beyond the value to allow for the ground state to accommodate a significant fraction of the particle population . This is also shown in Fig. 3. In this case, the ground state population has to be treated separately from the pions coming from the excited states, since the former originates from a pure quantum state, as opposed to the assumption leading to Eq. (20). The weight assigned to the pions coming from the ground state is equal to the ratio of the ground state population $`N_g`$ to the total number of pions of the given species $`N`$. Correspondingly, the correlation function $`C_2(q)`$ becomes flatter and the intercept with the vertical axis occurs for values smaller than $`2`$, that is, $`\lambda =1N_g/N`$. Thus, as the density increases, this behavior signals that for the given temperature and volume, pions are predominantly emitted from the ground state. This is in agreement with the analysis in Ref. .

Another property of the bound and expanding system of pions that can be extracted from the correlation function $`C_2(q)`$ is the behavior of the system’s effective radius $`R_{\text{eff}}`$ as a function of $`K`$. The relevant quantity to pay attention to is the ratio $`\eta =T/\gamma (R)m\beta `$ of the energy scale associated with random motion, i.e. $`T`$, to the energy scale associated with ordered motion, i.e. $`\gamma (R)m\beta `$. For $`K`$ small compared to $`\eta T`$ –that is, when the average pair momentum is mostly due to random motion– $`R_{\text{eff}}`$ is an increasing function of $`K`$. This can be understood by noticing  that increasing $`K`$ corresponds to increasing both of the momenta in the pion pair. Correspondingly, the quantum states that contribute to the momentum distributions $`P_1`$ and $`P_2`$ are those with increasingly larger quantum numbers. But, according to Eq. (13), these states are suppressed by their statistical weight and therefore, only those other states with smaller quantum numbers –and consequently with a larger spread in coordinate space– can contribute significantly to the correlation function, which in turn drops faster as a function of $`q`$ with increasing $`K`$, leading to an increase in size of the apparent region of particle emission. However, for $`K>\eta T`$, the collective motion dominates over the thermal component in $`K`$ and the relevant physical effect that dictates the behavior of $`R_{\text{eff}}`$ is the correlation between the spatial region of emission of pions and the pair momentum introduced by the collective expansion, in such a way that faster pions are more likely to be emitted from points close in space  leading to a reduction in size of the apparent region of particle emission.

The behavior of $`R_{\text{eff}}`$ as a function of $`K`$ is shown in Fig. 4 (solid line). Notice that the curve shows a maximum for a value of $`K\eta T`$. The curve is obtained by fitting the correlation functions $`C_2(q)`$ to Gaussians of the form

$`g(q)=1+\mathrm{exp}(q^2R_{\text{eff}}^2).`$ (25)
Equation (25) is a good description for correlation functions with large $`K`$. For small values of $`K`$, the fit is not as good. For comparison, also shown in Fig. 4 is the behavior of $`R_{\text{eff}}`$ for an expanding system without a boundary (dotted line) and for a bound system without the effects hydrodynamical expansion (thick solid line). For the former we choose a spherically symmetric phase space Gaussian distribution given by

$`G(𝐱,𝐩)=e^{𝐱^2/2R_{\text{gauss}}^2}e^{\gamma (x)\left(E_p𝐯p\right)/T},`$ (26)
with $`E_p=\sqrt{𝐩^2+m^2}`$ and $`𝐯`$ and $`\gamma (x)`$ given by Eqs. (4) and (6), respectively. The correlation function is given in terms of $`G(𝐱,𝐩)`$ by

$`C_2(𝐩_1,𝐩_2)=1+{\displaystyle \frac{\left|d^3xG(𝐱,\frac{𝐩_1+𝐩_2}{2})e^{i(𝐩_1𝐩_2)𝐱}\right|^2}{\left(d^3xG(𝐱,𝐩_1)\right)\left(d^3xG(𝐱,𝐩_2)\right)}}.`$ (27)
For the bound and non-expanding system, the eigenfunctions are given in terms of Bessel functions of the first kind  (see also Ref. ). The corresponding expression for $`R_{\text{eff}}`$ is obtained from that of $`C_2(q)`$ by also fitting Gaussians of the form given by Eq. (25). Notice that the curve representing the effective radius as a function of $`K`$ for a bound but non-expanding system grows with $`K`$, in agreement with the analysis of Ref. . In contrast, the curve representing the effective radius for an unbound but expanding system decreases monotonically as $`K`$ is increased, also in agreement with the analysis of Ref. .

## V Conclusions

In this work, we have studied the effects that a confining boundary together with hydrodynamical expansion at freeze out, play on the two-pion correlation function, in the context of relativistic heavy-ion collisions. We have argued that the confining boundary could be produced as a consequence of the high pion density that can be achieved at freeze out in central collisions.

We have shown that for a given system’s volume and temperature, varying the multiplicity, and therefore the chemical potential, does not introduce any changes in the correlation function when $`\mu `$ is below the values for BEC. However, the intercept of the function $`C_2(q)`$ occurs for values less than $`2`$ when the chemical potential is beyond the value to allow for BEC. A similar behavior can be expected for a given pion density if the freeze out temperature is below the critical temperature for BEC. However, this is a less likely scenario in this kind of collisions.

We have found the behavior of $`C_2(q)`$ when varying either $`R`$ or $`K`$ keeping the other variable fixed. Since the importance of correlation analyses rests basically on the information that it can provide about the physical size of the system produced during the collision, a main result of the present work is the functional dependence of the effective system radius $`R_{\text{eff}}`$ with the magnitude of the average pair momentum $`K`$. We have shown that the interplay of the energy scales associated with collective and random motion, $`\gamma (R)m\beta `$ and $`T`$, respectively, produce a maximum for $`R_{\text{eff}}`$ at a value $`K\eta T`$, where $`\eta =T/\gamma (R)m\beta `$. The physical origins of this behavior are the combined effects of the confining boundary and hydrodynamical expansion. In the regime where $`K`$ is basically due to random motion, the boundary effects are the most important and $`R_{\text{eff}}`$ grows as a function of $`K`$. However, in the regime where $`K`$ is basically due to collective expansion, the effective size of the system is dictated by the correlation between the points of emission and the pair momentum and $`R_{\text{eff}}`$ decreases as a function of $`K`$.

## Acknowledgments

Support for this work has been received in part by CONACyT-México under grants Nos. 29273-E and 32279-E.


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# Black Hole Evaporation and Compact Extra Dimensions

## I Introduction

The current interest in the possibility that there exist large extra dimensions  beyond the four dimensions of our every day experience is based on two attractive features of this proposal. First of all the hierarchy problem is by-passed because the radiative stability of the weak scale in this proposal is due to the identification of the ultraviolet cutoff of the theory with the electroweak energy scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{EW}`$. Ancillary assumptions such as supersymmetry are not required to achieve radiative stability. The other attraction of this proposal is that since the fundamental scale of the theory is the electroweak energy scale, predictions drawn from the theory such as deviations from the $`1/r^2`$ law of Newtonian gravity can be experimentally tested in the near future. In the extra-dimensions scenario all of the interactions, gravity as well gauge interactions, become unified at the electroweak scale. This means that if the model is viable, particle accelerators such as the LHC, the VLHC and the NLC will be able to uncover the features of quantum gravity as well as the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking.

The large-extra-dimension scenario also has significant implications for processes involving strong gravitational fields, such as the bending of light near a massive object and the decay of black holes. The latter phenomenon has been described within the context of the microcanonical ensemble (see Refs. ) in four space-time dimensions. Our starting point is the idea that black holes are (excitations of) extended objects ($`p`$-branes), a gas of which satisfies the bootstrap condition. This yields a picture in which a black hole and the emitted particles are of the same nature and an improved law of black hole decay which is consistent with unitarity (energy conservation). This idea has been bolstered by recent results in fundamental string theory, where it is now accepted that extended D$`p`$-branes are a basic ingredient . States of such objects were constructed which represent black holes  and corroborate  the old idea that the area of the horizon is a measure of the quantum degeneracy of the black hole . However, this latter approach works mostly for very tiny black holes and suffers from the same shortcoming that the determination of the space-time geometry during the evaporation is missing.

Embedding a black hole in a space-time of higher dimensionality would seem, from the string theory point of view, to be a natural thing to do. In models with extra spatial dimensions the four dimensional spacetime is viewed as a D3-brane embedded in a bulk spacetime of dimension $`4+d`$. In the most recent manifestation of string theory, matter is described by open strings whose endpoints are Dirichlet branes. Therefore in the large-extra-dimension scenario matter fields at low energy (in the present case this means at energies less than $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{EW}`$) are confined to live on the D3-brane. In string theory gravity is described by closed strings and hence it can propagate in the bulk. Black holes in $`4+d`$ extra dimensions have been studied in both compact  and infinitely extended  extra dimensions (see also  and references therein).

In Ref.  we studied the evaporation of black holes in space-times with extra dimensions of size $`L`$. We first obtained a description which interpolated between the expected behaviors of very large and very small black holes and then showed that a (first order) phase transition, possibly signaled by an outburst of energy, occurs in the system when the horizon shrinks below $`L`$ from a larger value. The phase transition is related to both a change in the topology of the horizon and the breaking of translational symmetry along extra dimensions. In the present work we extend the results of  by investigating several factors which affect the decay rate of a black hole.

In Section II we review and improve on the effective potential discussed in Ref. . In Section III we then analyze the evaporation of a black hole in $`4+d`$ dimensions both from the canonical and the microcanonical point of view and show that the luminosity of small black holes, such as primordial black holes (PBHs) which might be sources of $`\gamma `$-ray bursts, strongly depends on the number of space-time dimensions. Such a dependence is further enhanced by the analysis of wave propagation in Section III C where we argue that the heighth of the potential barrier which affects the grey-body factor depends on $`d`$. The phase transition and the accompanying topology change which a black hole undergoes as its horizon radius becomes of the order of the size of the extra dimensions ($`R_HL`$) are discussed in Section IV. Finally, in Section V we summarize and discuss our results. We use units with $`c=\mathrm{}=1`$.

## II The Effective Potential

If large extra spatial dimensions exist in nature, deviations from Newton’s law will be detected at the scale of the extra dimensions. Assuming that all of the matter described by the standard model lives on a four-dimensional D3-brane, the form of Newton’s law can be obtained for a point-like mass by means of Gauss’ law . Denoting by $`r`$ the radial distance in $`4+d`$ dimensions and by $`r_b`$ the radial distance as measured on the D3-brane, we find for distances $`r`$ much greater than the typical size of the extra dimension $`L`$ a potential of the form

$`V_{(4)}=G_N{\displaystyle \frac{M}{r_b}},`$ (II.1)
where $`G_N=m_p^2`$ is Newton’s constant in four dimensions. On the other hand for $`rL`$ the potential becomes

$`V_{(4+d)}=G_{(4+d)}{\displaystyle \frac{M}{r^{1+d}}},`$ (II.2)
with $`G_{(4+d)}=M_{(4+d)}^{2d}=L^dG_N`$. This implies that the huge Planck mass $`m_p^2=M_{(4+d)}^{2+d}L^d`$ and, for sufficiently large $`L`$ and $`d`$, the bulk mass scale $`M_{(4+d)}`$ (eventually identified with the fundamental string scale) can be as small as $`1`$TeV. Since

$`L\left[1\mathrm{TeV}/M_{(4+d)}\right]^{1+\frac{2}{d}}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{\frac{31}{d}16}\mathrm{mm},`$ (II.3)
requiring that Newton’s law not be violated for distances larger than $`1`$mm restricts $`d2`$ . Further bounds are obtained by estimating the production of KK-gravitons and support higher values of $`d`$ .

Since our purpose is to study the decay of black holes, we would like to be able to describe the metric tensor elements of a space surrounding a black hole for all values of the horizon $`R_H`$ of the black hole, including $`R_HL`$. Black holes with both very large horizon radii ($`R_HL`$) and very small radii ($`R_HL`$) have been extensively investigated. In the former case, the compact extra dimensions can be unwrapped and the real singularity can be regarded as spread along a (black) $`d`$-brane  of uniform density $`M/L^d`$, thus obtaining the Schwarzschild metric on the orthogonal D3-brane, in agreement with the weak field limit $`V_{(4)}`$, and an approximate “cylindrical” horizon topology $`S^2\times \text{I R}^d`$. In the latter case a solution is known , for one infinite extra dimension , which still has the form of a black string extending all the way through the bulk AdS5. However, this solution is unstable  and believed to further collapse into one point-like singularity . This can be also argued from the observation that the Euclidean action of a black hole is proportional to its horizon area and is thus minimized by the spherical topology $`S^{2+d}`$. Hence, small black holes are expected to correspond to a generalization of the Schwarzschild metric to $`4+d`$ dimensions  and should be colder and (possibly much) longer lived .

As a black hole evaporates the topology of the horizon changes from $`S^2\times R^d`$ to $`S^{2+d}`$ when $`R_H`$ decreases from $`R_H>L`$ to $`R_H<L`$. For small black holes a complete description would provide an explicit matching between the cylindrical metric (for $`rL`$) and the spherical metric (for $`rL`$). This is not a trivial detail, since the ADM mass of a spherical $`4+d`$ dimensional black hole is zero as seen from the D3-brane because there is no $`1/r_b`$ term in the large $`r`$ expansion of the time-time component of the metric tensor . Thus, one concludes that the four-dimensional ADM mass $`M`$ of a small black hole can be determined as a function of the horizon radius $`R_H`$ (which governs the evaporation) only after such a matching is provided explicitly. One can further guess that $`M`$ emerges either as a boundary effect (i.e., due to the size of the extra-dimension being bounded) or as a consequence of a non-zero tension (energy density) on the D3-brane (this latter possibility will not be considered here). Even less is known about black holes of size $`R_HL`$, and a complete description is likely to be achieved only by solving the entire set of field equations for an evaporating black hole in $`4+d`$ dimensions.

Rather than attempting the formidable problem of obtaining a complete description of an evaporating black hole from the field equations, we approximate the (time and radial components of the) metric in $`4+d`$ dimensions as

$`g_{tt}`$ $``$ $`12V(r)`$ (II.4)
$`g_{rr}`$ $``$ $`g_{tt}^1,`$ (II.6)
where

$`V(r)=G_N{\displaystyle \frac{M}{r_b}}\mathrm{\Theta }(r_bL){\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{d}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{C_nL^nG_NM\mathrm{\Theta }(Lr_b)}{\left[r_b^2+D_n\mathrm{\Theta }(Lr_b)_{i=1}^dy_i^2\right]^{(1+n)/2}}},`$ (II.7)
where $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is the Heaviside function (or a smooth approximation of it), the $`y_i`$s are cartesian coordinates in the $`d`$ extra dimensions and $`C_n`$, $`D_n`$ are numerical coefficients. This yields $`M`$ as the ADM mass (on the D3-brane) of the black hole and the radius of the horizon is determined by

$`g_{rr}^1=0.`$ (II.8)
The above ansatz does not provide an exact solution of the vacuum Einstein equations, since some of the components of the corresponding Einstein tensor in $`4+d`$ dimensions $`G_{ij}=8\pi G_{(4+d)}T_{ij}0`$. However, the coefficients $`C_n`$ and $`D_n`$ can be chosen in such a way that the “effective matter contribution” $`T_{ij}`$ from the region outside the black hole horizon is small. In particular, one can require the contribution to the ADM mass to be negligible,

$`m`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _{R_H}^{\mathrm{}}}d^{4+d}xT_t^t`$ (II.9)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G_{(4+d)}}}{\displaystyle _{R_H}^{\mathrm{}}}d^{4+d}xG_t^t(\{C_n\})M.`$ (II.10)
In this sense one can render the above metric a good approximation to a true black hole in $`4+d`$ dimensions. For instance, for $`d=1`$, we obtain

$`V(r)=\{\begin{array}{cc}G_N{\displaystyle \frac{M}{r_b}}\hfill & r>aLL\hfill \\ & \\ G_N{\displaystyle \frac{M}{r_b}}C{\displaystyle \frac{LG_NM}{r_b^2+y^2}}\hfill & L<bL<r<aL\hfill \\ & \\ C{\displaystyle \frac{LG_NM}{r_b^2+y^2}}\hfill & r<bL,\hfill \end{array}`$ (II.16)
where the various coefficients must satisfy

$`{\displaystyle \frac{m}{M}}=C{\displaystyle \frac{ab}{ab}}1,`$ (II.17)
which determines the size of the region in which both $`1/r`$ and $`1/r^2`$ terms are turned on . Correspondingly one finds

$`R_H(y=0)=\{\begin{array}{cc}2G_NM\hfill & MM_c\hfill \\ & \\ G_NM\left(1+\sqrt{1+{\displaystyle \frac{2CL}{G_NM}}}\right)\hfill & MM_c\hfill \\ & \\ \sqrt{2LG_NM}\hfill & MM_c,\hfill \end{array}`$ (II.23)
where $`M_c`$ is the value of $`M`$ for which the usual four-dimensional horizon radius $`2G_NM=L`$ \[the value of $`M`$ for which $`R_H=L`$ can be obtained only after solving Eq. (II.8), which is an algebraic equation of order $`d+2`$\]. For $`MM_c`$ the radius of the horizon also depends on the coordinate $`y`$ and is neither cylindrically nor spherically symmetric (see Fig. 1). Analogous estimates can be obtained for $`d>1`$.

Finally, we note that, although the ansatz in Eq. (LABEL:met) is not a true vacuum solution, such a solution would not be very useful for $`R_HL`$ in any event, because once Hawking radiation is included, its backreaction on the metric at small $`r`$ is likely to be significant. Therefore, it is sufficient to impose the condition that $`m`$ be comparable with the energy density of Hawking’s radiation integrated from $`r=R_H`$ to $`r=\mathrm{}`$, i.e. the amount of mass lost into Hawking particles. This quantity of course depends on the initial mass of the black hole.

## III Black Hole Evaporation

There are several factors affecting the rate of black hole evaporation due to Hawking radiation. We begin with a review of the expression for the decay as obtained from the canonical ensemble and then discuss the modifications to this expression which arise when the more basic microcanonical ensemble is used. Finally, we estimate the grey-body factor by studying the Klein-Gordan equation.

### A The canonical picture

When the size of the black hole is large compared to the extra dimensions ($`R_HL`$), $`rr_b`$ and the metric (LABEL:met) is approximately cylindrically symmetric (along the extra dimensions). Further, when $`L`$ is set to $`0`$, $`m=0`$, and Eq. (II.8) coincides with the usual four dimensional Schwarzschild radius

$`R_H2\mathrm{}_p{\displaystyle \frac{M}{m_p}}.`$ (III.1)
Correspondingly the inverse Hawking temperature ($`\beta _H=T_H^1`$) and Euclidean action are

$`\beta _H^>`$ $``$ $`8\pi \mathrm{}_p{\displaystyle \frac{M}{m_p}}`$ (III.2)
$`S_E^>`$ $``$ $`4\pi \left({\displaystyle \frac{M}{m_p}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{𝒜_{(4)}}{4\mathrm{}_p^2}},`$ (III.4)
where $`𝒜_{(D)}`$ is the area of the horizon in $`D`$ space-time dimensions and the condition $`R_HL`$ translates into

$`Mm_p{\displaystyle \frac{L}{\mathrm{}_p}}M_c\left({\displaystyle \frac{L}{1\mathrm{mm}}}\right)\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{27}\mathrm{g}.`$ (III.5)
The fact that the extra dimensions do not play any significant role at this stage is further confirmed by $`T_H^>2\pi /L`$. Since $`2\pi /Lm^{(1)}`$ is the mass of the lightest Kaluza-Klein(KK) mode, no KK particles can be produced.

The energy loss per unit time for an evaporating black hole is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dM}{dt}}=F_{(4+d)}^>F_{(4)}^>,`$ (III.6)
where $`F_{(D)}`$ is the total luminosity as measured in $`D`$ space-time dimensions. Since microcanonical corrections have been shown to become significant only for $`Mm_p`$ (in four space-time dimensions ), one can further approximate the luminosity by employing the (simpler) canonical expression

$`F_{(D)}`$ $``$ $`𝒜_{(D)}{\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_s(\omega )\omega ^{D1}}{e^{\beta _H\omega }1}}𝑑\omega `$ (III.7)
$`=`$ $`𝒜_{(D)}N_{(D)}(T_H)^D,`$ (III.8)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the grey-body factor and $`N`$ is a coefficient which depends upon the number of available particle species $`s`$ with energy smaller than $`T_H`$ and is also affected by the value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. For $`D=4`$ and $`\beta _H=\beta _H^>`$ one obtains the well known result

$`F_{(4)}^>{\displaystyle \frac{N_{(4)}}{\mathrm{}_p^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_p}{M}}\right)^2.`$ (III.9)
For $`R_HL`$ the parameters in the potential (II.7) can be chosen to minimize the contribution of $`m`$ to the ADM mass and this is generally obtained by switching off all terms except that going as $`1/r^{1+d}`$ for $`r<L`$. Eq. (II.8) then leads to

$`R_H\left(2L^dG_NM\right)^{1/1+d},`$ (III.10)
and the consistency conditions $`\mathrm{}_pR_HL`$ hold for

$`m_p\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}_p}{L}}\right)^{\frac{d}{2+d}}MM_c.`$ (III.11)
Since we have assumed that the spherical symmetry extends to $`4+d`$ dimensions, one obtains

$`\beta _H^<L\left({\displaystyle \frac{M}{M_c}}\right)^{\frac{1}{1+d}}`$ (III.12)
(III.13)
$`S_E^<\left({\displaystyle \frac{L}{\mathrm{}_p}}\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{M}{M_c}}\right)^{\frac{2+d}{1+d}}{\displaystyle \frac{A_{(4+d)}}{\mathrm{}_p^2L^d}},`$ (III.14)
which reduce back to (III.2) and (III.4) if one pushes down $`L\mathrm{}_p`$ ($`M_cm_p`$). For $`MM_c`$, the temperature $`T_H^<`$ is sufficient to excite KK modes, although it is lower than that of a four-dimensional black hole of equal mass. Correspondingly, the Euclidean action $`S_E^<(M)S_E^>(M)`$, yielding a smaller tunnelling probability

$`P\mathrm{exp}\left(S_E\right),`$ (III.15)
that is, a smaller probability for the Hawking particles to be created in the $`4+d`$ dimensional scenario.

Although ordinary matter is confined on the D3-brane, a black hole can emit particles via Hawking’s process into all of the $`3+d`$ spatial directions of the bulk. For $`R_HL`$ the evaporation of a black hole can be obtained from Eq. (III.8) with $`D=4+d`$ and $`T_H=T_H^<`$,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dM}{dt}}=F_{(4+d)}^<{\displaystyle \frac{N_{(4+d)}}{L^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{M_c}{M}}\right)^{\frac{2}{1+d}}.`$ (III.16)
The luminosity (III.8) can be written as

$`F_{(D)}={\displaystyle \frac{N_{(D)}}{R_H^2}}.`$ (III.17)
Thus, a comparison of the radius of the (apparent) horizon (III.10) with the analogous quantity in Eq. (III.1) shows that the luminosity of a black hole of given ADM mass $`M<M_c`$ is much smaller in $`4+d`$ dimensions than it would be with no extra dimensions. This assertion might have to be qualified if the $`N_{(D)}`$ term in the luminosity were greater in $`4+d`$ dimensions than the one in four dimensions. We show below that this is not the case.

Conservation of energy in $`4+d`$ dimensions requires that

$`F_{(4+d)}=F_{(4)}+F_{KK}`$ (III.18)
and since $`F_{(D)}N_{(D)}`$ \[Eq. (III.8)\] and the number of degrees of freedom of KK gravitons is much less than the number of standard model particles ($`N_{KK}N_{(4)}`$), the energy emitted into the KK modes must be a small fraction of the total luminosity (similar results were obtained in Ref. )

$`{\displaystyle \frac{F_{KK}}{F_{(4+d)}}}{\displaystyle \frac{N_{KK}}{N_{(4)}+N_{KK}}}1.`$ (III.19)
Standard model particles on the D3-brane with high enough energy (e.g., larger than $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{EW}`$) might be able to overcome the confining mechanism. In this case the bulk standard model fields should be included among the KK modes and $`N_{KK}`$ should be considered as an increasing function of the temperature. In this scenario the ratio $`F_{KK}/F_{(4+d)}`$ would eventually reach unity when $`T_H^<\mathrm{\Lambda }_{EW}`$.

### B The Microcanonical Picture

The canonical ensemble description used above is in principle incorrect because a black hole in asymptotically flat space-time cannot be in thermal equilibrium with its Hawking radiation. However for large black holes this description is a very good approximation to the true picture. The correct statistical mechanical description of black holes utilizes the microcanonical ensemble .

For $`R_HL`$ the topology of the horizon is “cylindrical”, and the Euclidean action is

$`S_E^>4\pi \left({\displaystyle \frac{M}{m_p}}\right)^2.`$ (III.20)
The number density in the microcanonical enesemble for this case is

$`n^>(\omega )={\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{[[M/\omega ]]}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{exp}\left[4\pi (Ml\omega )^2/m_p^2\right]}{\mathrm{exp}(4\pi M^2/m_p^2)}},`$ (III.21)
where $`[[X]]`$ denotes the integer part of $`X`$. In the limit $`M\mathrm{}`$, $`n^>`$ is equal to the canonical ensemble number density used in Eq. (III.8). The decay rate for a black hole in $`4+d`$ dimensions is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dM}{dt}}=𝒜_{(4+d)}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}n(\omega )\mathrm{\Gamma }(\omega )\omega ^{d+3}𝑑\omega .`$ (III.22)
Making the substitutions $`n=n^>`$, $`x=Ml\omega `$ and assuming that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1`$, the decay rate in four dimensions can be written as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dM}{dt}}=𝒜_{(4)}I{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{l^4}}={\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^4}{90}}𝒜_{(4)}I,`$ (III.23)
where

$`I={\displaystyle _0^M}{\displaystyle \frac{(Mx)^3\mathrm{exp}\left(4\pi x^2/m_p^2\right)dx}{\mathrm{exp}\left(4\pi M^2/m_p^2\right)}}.`$ (III.24)
A plot of the decay rate as a function of the mass is shown in Fig. 2. However, we remark that, in the presence of extra dimensions, this description holds only for $`M>M_c`$ ($`R_H>L`$), therefore the plot in Fig. 2 is probably not accurate for small masses. It should in fact be considered only in the region $`M/m_p>L/\mathrm{}_p`$ where there is no essential difference between the microcanonical and the canonical luminosities (III.9).

For $`R_H<L`$ the Euclidean action is

$`S_E^<=4\pi \left({\displaystyle \frac{L}{\mathrm{}_p}}\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{M}{M_c}}\right)^{(d+2)/(d+1)},`$ (III.25)
where $`M_c=m_pL/\mathrm{}_p`$. The number density for horizon radii of this size is

$`n^<(\omega )={\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{[[M/\omega ]]}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{exp}\left[4\pi \left(\frac{Ml\omega }{M_c}\right)^{\frac{d+2}{d+1}}\left(\frac{L}{\mathrm{}_p}\right)^2\right]}{\mathrm{exp}\left[4\pi \left(\frac{M}{M_c}\right)^{\frac{d+2}{d+1}}\left(\frac{L}{\mathrm{}_p}\right)^2\right]}}.`$ (III.26)
The decay rate corresponding to this number density as calculated from Eq. (III.22) is exhibited for $`d=0,\mathrm{},4`$ in Fig. 3. In this plot, we have matched the microcanonical decay rates for $`M<M_c`$ with the canonical rate given in Eq. (III.9) for $`M>M_c`$ by multiplying the former by a suitable constant in order to show that there is a peak in the luminosity around $`M_c`$. In fact, the curves show clearly that the decay rates for all cases with $`d>1`$ have a maximum at $`MM_c`$ and black holes with masses less than $`M_c`$ thus have a significantly slower evaporation rate which results in a longer lifetime (see Fig. 4). The case $`d=1`$ appears slightly different, but this value of $`d`$ must be rejected because it leads to contradictions with experimental tests of Newton’s law .

We wish to make two remarks about the above estimates: firstly, we expect the precise shapes of the decay rates in Fig. 3 at $`MM_c`$ depend on the details of the phase transition which we are able to describe only qualitatively (see Section IV). As a consequence, the curves in Fig. 4 are not totally reliable around $`t=0`$ ($`MM_c`$), but can be used to describe black holes which are produced with $`M(0)`$ significantly less than $`M_c`$; secondly, we have always set $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1`$, but the grey-body factor actually depends strongly on the number of extra dimensions $`d`$ causing a further suppression of the decay rate, as we show in Section III C.

A reduced decay rate for black holes in large extra dimensions has several interesting implications for cosmological phenomena involving PBHs. For $`d=2`$ and $`M_{(6)}1`$TeV, the size of the extra dimension is $`L1`$mm \[from Eq. (II.3)\] and $`M_c10^{27}`$g \[from Eq. (III.5)\]. Since the initial mass of an astrophysical black hole is known to exceed at least a few solar masses ($`M_0>10^7M_c`$) , its $`T_H^>`$ is cooler than the cosmic background radiation and it cannot decay to $`M_c`$ in any reasonable amount of time. However, PBHs (see, e.g., Refs. ) could have been produced with an initial mass $`M_0M_c`$, so that $`R_HL`$ from the very beginning and, according to Fig. (3) the lifetimes of such black holes would be many orders of magnitude longer than those living in four spacetime dimensions. For instance, a PBH with $`M_010^{15}`$g, which has a life-time comparable with the age of the Universe according to Eq. (III.9) (the canonical ensemble is a good approximation in this mass range for $`d=0`$), in this new scenario would decay in $`\tau _{(6)}10^{16}`$ times the age of the Universe. On the other hand, if the PBH had been produced with $`R_H>L`$, we can speculate that, after it shrank down to near $`L`$ according to Eq. (III.9), either the evaporation continued and its mass eventually entered into the regime of very slow decay, or the evaporation stopped (because of the backreaction) at $`MM_c`$. The latter option is even more dramatic, since it would leave remnants of mass as large as $`M_c`$ (to be compared with possible remnants of Planck size  as follows from microcanonical estimates in four dimensions ).

One can therefore highlight a list of topics involving PBHs upon which models with extra dimensions might have a bearing :

1. PBHs could be the source of $`\gamma `$-ray bursts and cosmic rays only if their initial mass was such that $`M10^5`$g  or $`MM_c`$ at the time of the emission; the allowed density of PBHs which fits into bounds obtained from current observations could then be significantly changed, with consequences on
2. models of the early Universe,
3. dark matter (in the form of KK particles ) and
4. density and size of microlensing sources .

### C Angular Momentum Barrier to Decay

A scalar wave in $`4+d`$ dimensions satisfies the equation

$`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Phi }=0,`$ (III.27)
where the D’Alembertian is given by

$`\mathrm{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}}_\mu \left(\sqrt{g}g^{\mu \nu }_\nu \right),`$ (III.28)
with (in spherical coordinates for which $`\theta _1=\theta `$ and $`\theta _2=\varphi `$)

$`\sqrt{g}=r^{2+d}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{d+2}{}}}(\mathrm{sin}\theta _i)^{d+2i}`$ (III.29)
For $`LR_H<r`$ we can neglect the extra dimensions and simply take the standard Schwarzschild line element on the brane,

$`ds^2\mathrm{\Delta }_{(4)}dt^2+{\displaystyle \frac{dr^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }_{(4)}}}+r^2\left(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2\right),`$ (III.30)
where

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_{(D)}=1\left({\displaystyle \frac{R_H}{r}}\right)^{D3}.`$ (III.31)
For $`R_H<rL`$ one can analogously consider a spherically symmetric black hole in $`4+d`$ dimensions . However, in order to take into account the fact that $`d`$ spatial dimensions have size $`L`$, we shall instead use the following form

$`ds^2\mathrm{\Delta }_{(4+d)}dt^2+{\displaystyle \frac{dr^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }_{(4+d)}}}+r^2\left(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2\right)+r^2{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{d}{}}}d\varphi _i^2,`$ (III.32)
where $`R_H<r<L`$ is the $`4+d`$ dimensional areal coordinate and $`dx^ird\varphi _i`$ are cartesian coordinates in the extra dimensions.

We assume the scalar field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ can be factorized according to

$`\mathrm{\Phi }=e^{i\omega t}R(r)S(\theta )e^{im\varphi }e^{i{\scriptscriptstyle n_i\varphi _i}},`$ (III.33)
with $`n_i`$ positive integers, so that $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ satisfies periodic boundary conditions at the edges of the bulk ($`y_i=\pm L/2`$). The radial equation obtained from Eq. (III.27) for the metric (III.32) then becomes ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }_{(4+d)}`$)

$`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{r^{2+d}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dr}}\left(r^{2+d}\mathrm{\Delta }{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dr}}\right)+\omega ^2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{r^2}}A\right]R=0`$ (III.34)
and the angular equation is

$`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{sin}\theta }}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\theta }}\left(\mathrm{sin}\theta {\displaystyle \frac{}{\theta }}\right){\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }}\right]S=\lambda S,`$ (III.35)
where $`A=\lambda +n_i^2`$, the separation constant $`\lambda =l(l+1)`$ and $`S=Y_l^m`$ is a standard spherical harmonic.

The radial equation can be further simplified by defining a tortoise coordinate

$`dr_{}{\displaystyle \frac{dr}{\mathrm{\Delta }}},`$ (III.36)
and introducing a rescaled radial function,

$`Wr^{1+d/2}R,`$ (III.37)
which then satisfies a Schrödinger-like equation

$`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{dr_{}^2}}+V\right]W=\omega ^2W,`$ (III.38)
where the potential $`V=V_1+V_2`$ is given by

$`V_1=\left[(1+d)\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{d}{2}}\right)+A\right]{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{r^2}}`$ (III.39)
(III.40)
$`V_2=\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{d}{2}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{r^2}}.`$ (III.41)
The contribution $`V_2`$ vanishes sufficiently fast near $`R_H`$ and is negligible there. The potential $`V_1`$ generates a barrier located outside the horizon which suppresses the grey-body factor for all modes of the scalar field including those with zero angular momentum . The effect for $`d=0`$ is mild, however for $`d>0`$ the barrier increases, significantly reducing the black hole decay rate. From the plot of the potential in Fig. 5 one can estimate the (frequency dependent) suppression factors with respect to the purely four-dimensional case (for which $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1`$) by making use of the W.K.B. approximation for the transmission probability

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\omega )\mathrm{exp}\left(2{\displaystyle 𝑑r\sqrt{\left|V\omega \right|}}\right),`$ (III.42)
where the integral must be performed between the two values of $`r`$ at which $`V=\omega `$ (for $`\omega `$ smaller than the maximum of $`V`$). For the typical frequency $`\omega T_H^<`$ ($`1`$ in the units of Fig. 5) one obtains

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{d=1}1`$ (III.43)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{d=2}0.73`$ (III.44)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{d=3}0.22`$ (III.45)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{d=4}0.05.`$ (III.46)
One then observes that, for frequency $`\omega <T_H^<`$ the transmission probability is smaller, while for quanta of frequency $`\omega T_H^<`$ the probability of creation is actually negligible. We remark that the curves shown in Fig. 5 were obtained by setting $`A=0`$ (i.e., $`l=n_i=0`$) and, since the $`n_i`$s cannot be zero, the curves represent lower bounds on the heighths of the curves and the values in Eq. (III.46) represent upper bounds on the grey-body factors. This barrier effect taken together with the decay rate reduction for $`d>1`$ (again, we recall that the case $`d=1`$ is ruled out) as shown in Fig. 3 would seem to suggest that black holes with horizon radii on the order of the size of the extra dimensions or less decay very little if at all.

## IV Horizon topology change and phase transition

In the foregoing analysis horizon radii on the order of the size of the extra dimensions ($`R_HL`$) have not been considered in great detail. For example, the expressions for $`\beta _H`$ and $`S_E`$ in this region are discontinuous because they contain numerical coefficients which depend on the topology and number of the extra dimensions. For instance,

$`S_E^<(M_c){\displaystyle \frac{S_{(4+d)}}{S_{(4)}}}S_E^>(M_c).`$ (IV.1)
A complete description of this process likely requires solving the full quantum backreaction problem in the bulk when $`MM_c`$, but we can get further physical insight by appealing to the point of view of the statistical mechanics. Although the use of the canonical ensemble is incorrect, it still leads to results in fairly good agreement with the microcanonical description for black holes of mass greater than $`m_p`$ in four dimensions and greater than $`M_c`$ in $`4+d`$ dimensions. We can then introduce an effective partition function for the black hole and its Hawking radiation as the Laplace transform of the microcanonical density of states but with a cut-off $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ which makes the partition function integral finite,

$`Z_\beta {\displaystyle ^\mathrm{\Lambda }}𝑑Me^{\beta M}e^{S_E(M)}.`$ (IV.2)
It then follows from Eq. (IV.1) that there is a discontinuity in the first derivative of the free energy $`\beta F\mathrm{ln}Z`$ at

$`\beta _cL{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m^{(1)}}},`$ (IV.3)
that is a first order phase transition (see Fig. 6): In the cold phase, $`T_H<\beta _c^1`$, the system appears “condensed” into the lower four dimensional 3-brane and translational invariance in the $`d`$ extra directions is broken. For $`T_H>\beta _c^1`$ translational invariance is restored, and the system starts spreading over all bulk space, with brane vibrations playing the role of Nambu-Goldstone bosons which give mass to the KK modes . In this approximation the specific heats in the cold and hot phases are given by

$`C_V^>\left({\displaystyle \frac{M}{m_p}}\right)^2`$ (IV.4)
$`C_V^<LM\left({\displaystyle \frac{M}{M_c}}\right)^{\frac{1}{1+d}},`$ (IV.5)
Since $`C_V^<`$ is negative (as is $`C_V^>`$), one is eventually forced to use the microcanonical description when the temperature is too high , as we have done in Section III B.

We end this Section by noting that the above analysis does not determine the typical times of such a transition. Using the results of the previous Section, one could argue that the transition takes a very long time to occur (if at all), since the luminosity of black holes is strongly damped for $`M<M_c`$. Although an outburst of energy at $`MM_c`$ cannot be excluded (and is actually favored according to the microcanonical rate as displayed in Fig. 3), it seems implausible that the black hole can then complete the transition and reach very small masses in a reasonable amount of time.

## V Conclusions

While the effective potential of Eq. (LABEL:met) is not a vacuum solution, it does have the desirable property of providing only a small contribution to the ADM mass if the adjustable constants in the potential are properly chosen. It also contains a parameter which is readily identifiable as the mass of the black hole for both $`R_H>L`$ and $`R_H<L`$.

The analysis of the black hole decay rate in both the canonical and microcanonical pictures shows that the presence of large extra dimensions would slow the decay rate, and that the decay rate decreases with increasing number of extra dimensions. The source of this decrease in decay rate is the dependence of the number density and the horizon area on the number of extra dimensions. In addition to these effects the size of the angular momentum barrier increases with the number of extra dimensions, further decreasing the decay rate. This result suggests that, even without taking backreaction effects into account, black holes with horizon radii less than the size of the extra dimensions are quasi-stable. Thus, even small primordial black holes (masses less than $`M_010^{15}`$gm) could have lifetimes comparable to or even much longer than the age of the present universe. The detection of PBHs with masses less than $`M_0`$ would be evidence for the existence of large extra dimensions, and the values of the PBH masses would set limits on the number of extra dimensions.

A statistical mechanical analysis of a black hole whose horizon radius $`R_H`$ is approximately equal to the size $`L`$ of the extra dimensions shows that as $`R_H`$ shrinks below $`L`$, a phase transition occurs. This event is accompanied by a change in the horizon topology from “cylindrical” ($`S^2\times R`$) to “spherical” ($`S^3`$). An interesting extension of the present work would be to see if the phase transition can be described in terms of the topology change.

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant no. DE-FG02-96ER40967 and by NATO grant no. CRG.973052.