Quantum mechanical spectra of charged black holes

Abstract

It has been argued by several authors, using different formalisms, that the quantum mechanical spectrum of black hole horizon area is discrete and uniformly spaced. Recently it was shown that two such approaches, namely the one involving quantization on a reduced phase space, and the algebraic approach of Bekenstein and Gour are equivalent for spherically symmetric, neutral black holes (hep-th/0202076). That is, the observables of one can be mapped to those of the other. Here we extend that analysis to include charged black holes. Once again, we find that the ground state of the black hole is a Planck size remnant.