Events

Abstract: In the main part of this talk we review recent progress clarifying some physical aspects of the extremal limit of black holes. We describe two puzzles that arise from a semiclassical treatment of near-extremal black hole thermodynamics. Both puzzles are resolved by realizing that quantum corrections become arbitrarily large at low temperatures, and we explain how the spectrum and dynamics of near-extremal black holes are modified. This analysis also implies that without low energy supersymmetry, such as in the real world, extremal black holes at exactly zero temperature do not exist since the classical picture breaks down completely. In the last part of the talk we describe work in progress that applies these ideas to some concrete setups.