Renormalization of ⟨ϕ2⟩ at the inner horizon of rotating, accreting black holes

Abstract

Classically, the inner horizon of a perturbed, rotating black hole undergoes an instability known as mass inflation, wherein the spacetime curvature diverges as a result of hyper-relativistic crossing streams of ingoing and outgoing radiation. The generic outcome of this instability is currently believed to be a strong, spacelike singularity, potentially alongside a weak, null singularity surviving at late times. However, the quantum back-reaction in this regime has yet to be fully calculated for a realistic black hole spacetime. Here we consider a massless quantized scalar field $\phi$ over the inflationary Kasner spacetime, a recently developed model for the inner horizon geometry of a rotating, accreting black hole. With this spacetime, we use numerical adiabatic regularization to calculate $\langle\phi^2\rangle_\text{ren}$, the renormalized coincidence limit of the two-point correlation function, as a pointer to the behavior of the quantum stress-energy tensor. $\langle\phi^2\rangle_\text{ren}$ is generically found to be nonzero near the inner horizon, divergent where the curvature classically diverges, and larger for smaller black hole spins or accretion rates.