Pancakification and negative Hawking temperatures

Abstract

Vacuum models of charged or spinning black holes possess two horizons, the inner of which has the oft-overlooked property that gravitational tidal forces initially spaghettifying a freely falling observer will eventually change signs and flatten the observer like a pancake. Inner horizons also may induce a classical blueshift instability known as mass inflation, and a number of recent studies have found that inner horizons exhibit even stronger quantum singular behavior. In this essay, we explore the quantum effect of Hawking radiation, which in the presence of compressive tidal forces seems to predict negative temperatures. By analyzing the interaction of quantum fields with black hole geometries, we can come to a closer semiclassical understanding of what really happens near a black hole’s inner horizon.