The irreversible thermodynamics of black holes

The action of quantum fluctuations of the gravitational field may be regarded as the origin of the dissipative processes associated with Hawking radiation. In this picture the black hole possesses internal coherence by virtue of the localization of its mass. The cumulative effect of the quantum fluctuations in the geometry is that this coherence is corrupted and the mass is sapped away. © 1978 Plenum Publishing Corporation.