Hawking radiation

In physics, Hawking radiation (also known as Bekenstein-Hawking radiation) is a thermal radiation thought to be emitted by black holes due to "quantum effects". It is named after British physicist Stephen Hawking who provided the theoretical argument for its existence in 1974, and sometimes also after the Israeli physicist Jacob Bekenstein who predicted that black holes should have thermal properties. Because Hawking radiation allows black holes to lose mass, black holes which lose more matter than they gain through other means are expected to evaporate, and shrink, and ultimately vanish. Smaller 'micro' black holes are currently predicted by theory to be larger net emitters of radiation than larger black holes, and to shrink and evaporate faster.

Hawking's discovery became the first convincing insight into quantum gravity. However, the existence of Hawking radiation remains controversial.