The Return of the Singularities: Applications of the Smeared Null Energy Condition

Understand

The classic singularity theorems of General Relativity rely on energy conditions that can be violated in semiclassical gravity.

• Here, we provide motivation for an energy condition obeyed by semiclassical gravity: the smeared null energy condition (SNEC), a proposed bound on the weighted average of the null energy along a finite portion of a null geodesic.
• We then prove a semiclassical singularity theorem using SNEC as an assumption.
• This theorem extends the Penrose theorem to semiclassical gravity.