Gravitational anomalies: a recipe for Hawking radiation

Abstract

We explore the method of Robinson andWilczek for deriving the Hawking temperature of a black hole. In this method, the Hawking radiation restores general covariance in an effective theory of near-horizon physics which otherwise exhibits a gravitational anomaly at the quantum level. The method has been shown to work for broad classes of black holes in arbitrary spacetime dimensions. These include static black holes, accreting or evaporating black holes, charged black holes, rotating black holes, and even black rings. In the cases of charged and rotating black holes, the expected super-radiant current is also reproduced.