A Negative energy in Hawking radiation

Click For Summary
Negative energy quanta are introduced in the context of Hawking radiation, where they enter black holes. There are two distinct mathematical interpretations of negative energy: one involves Bogoliubov modes with negative frequencies, while the other relates to negative energy flux through the event horizon from the energy-momentum tensor. These two concepts of negative energy appear unrelated, leading to confusion in understanding their connection. The discussion highlights a recognized disconnect between various heuristic descriptions of Hawking radiation, including the common analogy of virtual particle pairs. Overall, the relationship between these interpretations remains unclear and warrants further exploration.
Demystifier
Science Advisor
Insights Author
Messages
14,605
Reaction score
7,211
At a descriptive level, negative energy quanta enter a black hole during Hawking radiation. But when one tries to understand it mathematically, it seems that negative "energies" appear in two very different senses, which seem to be totally unrelated to each other. At one level one has Bogoliubov modes with negative frequencies, i.e. modes proportional to ##e^{-i\omega t}## where ##\omega## is negative and ##t## is a certain coordinate time. At another level one has negative flux of energy through the horizon, computed from the renormalized expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor. But it seems to me that those two notions of "negative energy" are totally unrelated to each other. Or at least I don't see how they are related. Is there a relation between them that I miss?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Demystifier said:
Is there a relation between them that I miss?
Not that I'm aware of. I believe the disconnect between the various heuristic descriptions of Hawking radiation has been commented on in the literature. Another disconnect is between both of your descriptions and the "pair of virtual particles with one falling into the hole and the other escaping to infinity" description.
 
  • Like
Likes Demystifier
The Poynting vector is a definition, that is supposed to represent the energy flow at each point. Unfortunately, the only observable effect caused by the Poynting vector is through the energy variation in a volume subject to an energy flux through its surface, that is, the Poynting theorem. As a curl could be added to the Poynting vector without changing the Poynting theorem, it can not be decided by EM only that this should be the actual flow of energy at each point. Feynman, commenting...