Which physicist predicted black holes could slowly lose mass through quantum effects?

Stephen Hawking predicted that black holes could slowly lose mass through quantum effects.

Hawking presented the idea in 1974, combining quantum field theory with general relativity in the curved spacetime around a black hole. The result, now called Hawking radiation, gives a black hole a temperature and allows it to emit an extremely weak thermal spectrum.

The prediction does not mean ordinary particles simply escape from inside the event horizon. Instead, quantum fields around the horizon produce radiation detectable in principle by a distant observer. The outgoing energy is balanced by a loss of the black hole’s mass.

For astrophysical black holes, the effect is extraordinarily faint. A black hole with the Sun’s mass would have a temperature far below that of the cosmic microwave background, so it would absorb more background energy than it emits today. Much smaller hypothetical black holes would be hotter and could evaporate more quickly, though no primordial black hole has been confirmed.