How the Universe postpones the evaporation and curtails the quantum spreading of black holes

Abstract

Black holes are expected to evaporate through the process of Hawking radiation. This process is expected to cause the uncertainty in a black hole's position to grow to $\sim M^2/M_{Pl}^3$ over the course of it's lifetime, even as its momentum spreads only by $\sim M_{Pl}$. For the black holes that have been observed, which have $M\geq M_\odot$, this greatly exceeds the Hubble volume. However, the decay of black holes and their quantum spreading, are delayed in the Universe while the influx of energy into the black holes exceeds their Hawking luminosity. We show that for these $M\geq M_\odot$ black holes, their decay outside galaxies and clusters is prevented far longer than it takes the black holes to be dragged well beyond the Hubble horizon, where their eventual decay occurs away from the prying eyes of any observer who has not hitched a ride with them. Meanwhile, black holes in an observer's galaxy or cluster are themselves prevented from decaying long past the extinction of the last stars, and at least until their galaxy/cluster is swept clean of dark matter, in $\gg 10^{25}$y. Even then, if the black holes become unbound they are dragged beyond the Hubble radius before undergoing significant decay; if not, they remain in bound orbits, spreading at most over a subvolume of the galaxy/cluster, and long localized by scatterings to much smaller volumes.