Year: 2021
Type: peer-review
Abstract: The classic singularity theorems of General Relativity rely on energy conditions that can be violated in semiclassical gravity.Here, we provide motivation for an energy condition obeyed by semiclassical gravity: the smeared null energy condition (SNEC), a proposed bound on the weighted average of the null energy along a finite portion of a null geodesic.We then prove a semiclassical singularity theorem using SNEC as an assumption.This theorem extends the Penrose theorem to semiclassical gravity.We also apply our bound to evaporating black holes and the traversable wormhole of Maldacena-Milekhin-Popov, and comment on the relationship of our results to other proposed semiclassical singularity theorems.
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W4285616136