Questions regarding Hawking radiation

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Discussion Overview

This discussion revolves around the concept of Hawking radiation, exploring its theoretical status, potential observational evidence, and the mechanisms proposed to explain how it occurs. Participants express varying degrees of understanding and confusion regarding the phenomenon, its implications, and the interpretations of existing explanations.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants believe that Hawking radiation is a real phenomenon, while others express skepticism about its observational status.
  • A participant conducted an informal survey indicating that physicists they know generally agree on the reality of Hawking radiation but acknowledge the difficulty of direct observation.
  • There is discussion about the possibility of detecting Hawking radiation indirectly or creating it in a laboratory setting, though opinions on the feasibility of these scenarios vary.
  • One participant expresses confusion about the mechanism by which mass-energy escapes a black hole, questioning the validity of popular explanations involving particle-antiparticle pairs.
  • Several participants challenge the heuristic explanations commonly found in popular science, arguing that they can misrepresent the underlying physics.
  • There is a distinction made between heuristic explanations and myths, with some asserting that while heuristics are useful for lay understanding, they should not be taken literally.
  • Concerns are raised about the timing of energy borrowing and particle creation in relation to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, with no consensus on whether this timing is exceeded in the context of Hawking radiation.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus on the mechanisms of Hawking radiation, with significant disagreement about the validity of popular explanations and the interpretation of heuristic models. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the clarity of these mechanisms and the implications for understanding Hawking radiation.

Contextual Notes

Participants express uncertainty about the observational status of Hawking radiation and the validity of various explanations. There are limitations in the clarity of the mechanisms discussed, and the conversation reflects a range of interpretations and understandings of the phenomenon.

  • #31
Ilja said:
Not good for Hawking radiation being a reliable thing if it depends on this. This would mean that we have to know the future to find out if there is Hawking radiation or not. Because you can easily define a time-like coordinate so that the horizon is formed only in the future. Schwarzschild time would do it.
I don't quite understand what you're trying to say.

Ilja said:
As if this would prove anything.

Hm, let's try. Take a charge and move it, up and down, at home once in a second. What will be the wavelength of the EM wave created by this moving charge? What does this tell us about the size of the origin of this wave?

Here we're talking about particles. If there is an electron with de Broglie wavelength of the order of a stadium, it doesn't make sense to say where in the stadium that electron is.
 
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  • #32
ShayanJ said:
I don't quite understand what you're trying to say.
Hm, let's try again. I think a theory which predicts that I observe / do not observe radiation in dependence of some fact which happens only in the future, with everything which has already happened in the past, and up to now, being equal, would have a big problem with causality.

This holds for every time-like coordinate. If I have a time-like coordinate, and the fact if I observe Hawking radiation or not depends on something which is, according to this time coordinate, in the future, this sounds like a problem for Einstein causality, not?

For every event for an observer at infinity, who observes Hawking radiation, one can easily find a time-like coordinate where the horizon is not yet formed. Outside the collapsing body, standard Schwarzschild time will define one such coordinate. So, your claim
"The presence of the horizon matters. Its not like we need a special place for Hawking radiation, we need the horizon itself."
suggests me that such a position has a serious problem with Einstein causality.

In my opinion, all what can matter for the prediction of Hawking radiation at some far away event is what is part of the past light cone of this event. And this part does not contain any horizon, for all those events horizon formation is yet only future, so that it may be not even certain if a horizon will form or not.
ShayanJ said:
Here we're talking about particles. If there is an electron with de Broglie wavelength of the order of a stadium, it doesn't make sense to say where in the stadium that electron is.
Sorry, no, I'm not talking about particles. I'm talking about radiation. And I know that to attribute a position to a photon is not unproblematic, so I do not talk about such positions. I was talking about the region which has caused the radiation. My example suggest that such a region may be much smaller than what the wavelength suggests.
 

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