Gravitational Pair Production and Black Hole Evaporation

We present a new avenue to black hole evaporation using a heat-kernel approach analogous as for the Schwinger effect. Applying this method to an uncharged massless scalar field in a Schwarzschild spacetime, we show that spacetime curvature takes a similar role as the electric field strength in the Schwinger effect. We interpret our results as local pair production in a gravitational field and derive a radial production profile. The resulting emission peaks near the unstable photon orbit. Comparing the particle number and energy flux to the Hawking case, we find both effects to be of similar order. However, our pair production mechanism itself does not explicitly make use of the presence of a black hole event horizon.

Automated summary

This paper presents a new approach to black hole evaporation using a heat-kernel approach analogous to the Schwinger effect. By applying this method to a massless scalar field in a Schwarzschild spacetime, the authors demonstrate that spacetime curvature plays a role similar to the electric field strength in the Schwinger effect. The results are interpreted as local pair production in a gravitational field, and a radial production profile is derived. The emitted particles peak near the unstable photon orbit, and the effects of particle number and energy flux are found to be comparable to the Hawking case. However, the pair production mechanism itself does not explicitly rely on the presence of a black hole event horizon.