Black hole evaporation and large extra dimensions

We study the evaporation of black holes in space-times with extra dimensions of size L. We first obtain a potential which describes the expected behaviors of very large and very small black holes and then show that a (first order) phase transition, possibly signaled by an outburst of energy, occurs in the system when the horizon shrinks below L from a larger value. This is related to both a change in the topology of the horizon and the restoring of translational symmetry along the extra dimensions. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.