Spacetime can be neither discrete nor continuous

Abstract

We show that our recent Bohr-like approach to black hole (BH) quantum physics implies that spacetime quantization could be energy-dependent. Thus, in a certain sense, spacetime can be neither discrete nor continuous. Our approach also permits to show that the “volume quantum” of the Schwarzschild spacetime increases with increasing energy during BH evaporation and arrives at a maximum value when the Planck scale is reached and the generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) prevents the total BH evaporation. Remarkably, this result does not depend on the BH original mass. The interesting consequence is that the behavior of BH evaporation should be the same for all Schwarzschild BHs when the Planck scale is approached.