Black Hole Physics from Liouville Theory

TL;DR

This paper explores how Liouville theory, derived from dilaton-gravity, provides insights into black hole singularities and Hawking radiation, highlighting quantum effects that modify classical black hole behavior.

Contribution

It demonstrates the physical interpretation of Liouville-like theories in black hole contexts and shows quantum corrections can resolve singularities and determine Hawking radiation.

Findings

Quantum corrections tame black hole singularities

Hawking radiation rate is independent of matter fields

Radiation determined by ghost conformal anomaly

Abstract

In a previous paper it was shown that the quantum consistency conditions for the dilaton-gravity theory of Callan et al., imply that the cosmological constant term undergoes a dilaton dependent renormalization, in such a manner that the theory can be written as a Liouville-like theory. In this paper we discuss the physical interpretation of the solutions of this theory. In particular we demonstrate explicitly how quantum corrections tame the black hole singularity. Also under the assumption that in asymptotically Minkowski coordinates, there are no incoming or outgoing ghosts, we show that the Hawking radiation rate is independent of the number of matter fields and is determined by the ghost conformal anomaly.