Quantum uncertainty in the area of a black hole
High Energy Physics - Theory
2025-08-05 v2
Abstract
Quantum fluctuations of the spacetime metric induce an uncertainty in the horizon area of a black hole. Working in linearized quantum gravity, we derive the variance in the area of a four-dimensional Schwarzschild black hole from the renormalized graviton propagator. We find that the standard deviation of the horizon area scales as the product of the Schwarzschild radius and the Planck length. For macroscopic black holes, the quantum uncertainty is therefore enormous in Planck units.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2412.21160,
title = {Quantum uncertainty in the area of a black hole},
author = {Maulik Parikh and Jude Pereira},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.21160},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
27 pages, 2 figures; added references and discussion