Black Hole Evaporation. A Survey

This thesis is a review of black hole evaporation with emphasis on recent results obtained for two dimensional black holes. First, the geometry of the most general stationary black hole in four dimensions is described and some classical quantities are defined. Then, a derivation of the spectrum of the radiation emitted during the evaporation is presented. In section four, a two dimensional model which has black hole solutions is introduced, the so-called CGHS model. These two dimensional black holes are found to evaporate. Unlike the four dimensional case, the evaporation process can be studied analytically as long as the mass of the black hole is well above the two dimensional analog of the Planck mass. Finally, some proposals for resolving the so-called information paradox are reviewed and it is concluded that none of them is fully satisfactory.