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arXiv · 2111.08017

Black hole induced false vacuum decay: The role of greybody factors

Andrey Shkerin·Sergey Sibiryakov
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Abstract

We study false vacuum decay catalyzed by black holes. We consider a toy two-dimensional model of a scalar field with an unstable potential in the background of a dilaton black hole. A realistic black hole in four dimensions possesses the potential barrier for linear field perturbations. We model this barrier -- the greybody factor -- for spherically-symmetric perturbations in the toy model by adding a coupling between the scalar field and dilaton. We compute analytically the decay rate for the black hole in thermal equilibrium (Hartle-Hawking state) and for the radiating black hole in empty space (Unruh state). Our results show that, contrary to the Hartle-Hawking vacuum, the decay probability of the Unruh vacuum remains exponentially suppressed at all black hole temperatures. We argue that this result holds also in four dimensions.

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Andrey Shkerin, Sergey Sibiryakov. 2022-08-22. Black hole induced false vacuum decay: The role of greybody factors. https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep08(2022)161

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