BLACK-HOLES INITIATE FALSE-VACUUM DECAY

We consider O(3)-invariant tunneling processes which induce false-vacuum decay in general relativity. We find that in the presence of a black hole in a false vacuum the process of spontaneous nucleation of a bubble around a black hole (with the true phase in between the bubble shell and the black-hole surface) proceeds at a tremendously faster rate than that of an empty O(4)-invariant true phase bubble provided the black-hole mass does not exceed m(max) = M(Pl)4/12 square-root 3-pi-S. There we also find the spontaneous creation of black holes during first-order vacuum-vacuum phase transitions.