# Quanta of Geometry and Rotating Black Holes

## Abstract

In the loop approach to quantum gravity the spectra of operators corresponding to such geometrical quantities as length, area and volume become quantized. However, the size of arising quanta of geometry in Planck units is not fixed by the theory itself: a free parameter, sometimes referred to as Immirzi parameter, is known to affect the spectrum of all geometrical operators. In this paper I propose an argument that fixes the value of this parameter. I consider rotating black holes, in particular the extremal ones. For such black holes the “no naked singularity condition” bounds the total angular momentum $`J`$ by $`A_H/8\pi G`$, where $`A_H`$ is the horizon area and $`G`$ Newton’s constant. A similar bound on $`J`$ comes from the quantum theory. The requirement that these two bounds are the same fixes the value of Immirzi parameter to be unity. A byproduct of this argument is the picture of the quantum extremal rotating black hole in which all the spin entering the extremal hole is concentrated in a single puncture.

preprint:  CGPG-98/3-3  

Even a most naive application of quantum ideas to gravity suggests that the picture of continuous fabric of spacetime becomes meaningless on distances of the order of Planck length. Current approaches to quantum gravity support this conclusion. Thus, for example, in string theory, the usual description of geometry in terms of spacetime metric whose evolution is governed by some action principle is valid only at low energies. An old set of results  on high energy string scattering amplitudes indicates that at very high energies the size of strings becomes important which means that the usual metric description of spacetime geometry is not good at short distances. In non-perturbative quantum gravity, or loop quantum gravity, as it is sometimes called, the discrete structure of geometry on Planck scale is manifested by the fact that spectra of operators corresponding to such geometrical quantities as length, area and volume become quantized . The “size” of arising quanta of geometry is proportional to Planck length. However, the spectra of geometrical operators turn out to depend on an additional physical parameter, not fixed by the theory itself, which determines the size of quanta of geometry in Planck units. The presence of this parameter in the theory was pointed out by Immirzi , and I shall refer to it as Immirzi parameter.

In this paper I argue that the value of Immirzi parameter in loop quantum gravity must be set to a particular fixed value. This completely fixes the size of quanta of geometry in the approach. I make the argument by comparing some results from loop quantum gravity with some facts about rotating black holes, in particular the extremal rotating black holes. As a byproduct of this argument we shall arrive at an interesting quantum description of the extremal rotating black holes.

In loop quantum gravity, the elementary excitations of geometry are described in terms of one-dimensional objects - loops, or, more generally, graphs in space. The edges of these graphs carry various quantum numbers, in particular spin, and can be thought of as flux lines. In particular, these lines “carry” area: surfaces acquire area through their intersections with the flux lines. The flux of area carried by each flux line is quantized, which implies the quantization of the area spectrum in the theory. The spectrum is given by 

$$A_S=8\pi \gamma l_p^2\underset{p}{}\sqrt{j_p(j_p+1)}.$$
(1)   
Here $`A_S`$ stands for an eigenvalue of the operator measuring the area of a surface $`S`$, sum is taken over all points $`p`$ where flux lines intersect the surface, $`j_p`$ are spins (half-integers) labelling the corresponding flux lines, $`\gamma `$ is a real, positive parameter (Immirzi parameter) and $`l_p^2=G\mathrm{}`$, $`G`$ being Newton constant. We set $`c=1`$ throughout. The spectrum is purely discrete, and $`\gamma `$ fixes the size of quanta of area in Planck units. Let us emphasize that $`l_p`$ in (1) is the usual Planck length $`l_p=\sqrt{G\mathrm{}}1.6\times 10^{33}\mathrm{cm}`$ calculated using the physical, “macroscopical” Newton’s constant. Due to renormalization effects, the later may, in principle, be different from the “microscopical” Newton’s constant that enters as a parameter of the quantum theory. If such a renormalization occurs, the corresponding renormalization factor is absorbed in $`\gamma `$ so that $`l_p`$ is the usual Planck length.

To fix the value of parameter $`\gamma `$ let us consider the Kerr family of black hole solutions. Let us recall some simple facts about these black holes. They are described by two parameters: mass $`M`$ and angular momentum $`J`$. The horizon area $`A_H`$ is given by the well-known function of $`M,J`$. The condition that there is no naked singularity reads $`J/MGM`$. The value of $`J`$ saturating the inequality corresponds to the extremal black hole. Instead of using $`M,J`$ as the independent parameters describing the black hole, one can work with $`A_H,J`$. A simple algebraic manipulation shows that “no naked singularity” condition expressed in terms of the parameters $`A_H,J`$ reads

$$J\frac{A_H}{8\pi G}.$$
(2)   
The value of angular momentum $`J`$ saturating the inequality corresponds to the extremal black hole.

The argument I am about to present depends on two assumptions. The first one is that the area spectrum for the horizon surface of a rotating black hole is given by (1). This can almost be said to be a prediction of loop quantum gravity, because the spectrum (1) is derived from very general principles and should be valid for any surface, in particular the horizon. On the other hand, we do not have a quantum description of rotating black holes as of yet, so the validity of (1) in this context is still an assumption. The second assumption is much stronger. I assume that the total angular momentum of the black hole is related to the spins labelling the flux lines intersecting the horizon. It is then most natural to assume that the black hole angular momentum is given by a vector sum of spins entering the hole. A precise way the angular momentum is obtained from spins may be very complicated. However, independently of these details, the total angular momentum will satisfy the inequality

$$J\mathrm{}\underset{p}{}j_p.$$
(3)   
The argument below depends crucially on the assumption expressed by this inequality.

Let us now consider a family of quantum black holes for which the algebraic sum of spins $`_pj_p`$ is the same. According to (3), the angular momentum for all these black holes is bound by $`\mathrm{}_pj_p`$. On the other hand, the area spectrum (1) tells us that the horizon area $`A_H>8\pi \gamma l_p^2_pj_p`$. Thus, what we get is a bound on possible values of angular momentum of the black hole of a fixed horizon area:

$$J<\frac{A_H}{8\pi \gamma G}.$$
(4)   
The above inequality is strict, that is one can never saturate the bound. However, there is a way to arrange punctures such that the bound is “almost” saturated. Indeed, by putting all the spin entering the black hole in a single puncture of spin $`j`$ we get $`A_H=8\pi \gamma l_p^2j+O(1)`$. Thus, for a large $`j`$ the bound in (4) can be “almost” saturated by putting all the spin at a single puncture.

The bound (4) is strikingly resemblant of the inequality (2). The values of parameters in (2) that saturate the bound correspond to the extremal black holes. Quite similarly, the quantum states that are closest to the saturation of the bound in (4) are the “extremal” ones for which all the spin entering the hole is concentrated in a single puncture. This strongly suggests that the two bounds –the one coming from the properties of the classical black hole solution and the one coming from the quantum theory– express the same physical property and must coincide. This is only possible if one fixes the value of the Immirzi parameter to be the unity:

$$\gamma =1.$$
(5)   
This is the end of the argument.

Let us conclude with several remarks. (i) The value (5) of the Immirzi parameter is not the same value as one gets from the quantum mechanical calculation of black hole entropy . In fact, with the above value of the parameter, the approach of  gives the value for the entropy $`S0.2S_{BH}`$, where $`S_{BH}`$ is Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. Thus, either the argument presented has a flaw, or the approach  undercounts the states. (ii) The above argument depends crucially on the assumption that the angular momentum of a rotation black hole is related to the spin entering the hole. It is not at all obvious that this must be the case, because the angular momentum of the hole is related to spacetime rotations, while the spin labelling the flux lines has to do with rotations in the internal space. On the other hand, there are no other quantities to which the angular momentum can be related: in the absence of matter the spins (and the related labels for the intertwiners) are the only quantum numbers labelling the states. Thus, whether the above assumption is true or false remains to be seen. (iii) It is encouraging that our assumption leads to such a simple picture for extremal black holes. As we saw, the extremal rotating black hole is described by the “extremal” configuration in which all the spin entering the hole is concentrated at a single point on the horizon. At the same time all the area is concentrated at the same point. Thus, the horizon geometry becomes highly non-classical at extremality.

Acknowledgements: I am grateful to T. Jacobson for a discussion and to L. Freidel for reading the manuscript. This work was supported in part by the Braddock fellowship of Penn State, by the NSF grants PHY95-14240, PHY94-07194 and by the Eberly research funds of Penn State. The author is also grateful to the Institute for Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara, where this work was completed.