Hawking radiation, quantum fields, and tunneling.

Abstract

I consider the problem of reconciling tunneling approaches to black-hole radiation with the treatment by quantum field theory in curved space-time. It is not possible to do this completely, but using what appears to be the most direct and natural correspondence, the simplest case of such an approach does not describe a tunneling process but rather a WKB approximation to a two-point function. What it computes is a sort of rescaled Unruh temperature associated with world-lines tracing Killing trajectories near the horizon. This temperature is numerically equal to the Hawking temperature, but at this point no argument is known which identifies it with the Hawking effect; indeed, the same temperature can exist when no curvature is present.