A singularity theorem for evaporating black holes

Understand

The classical singularity theorems of General Relativity rely on energy conditions that are easily violated by quantum fields.

• Here, we provide motivation for an energy condition obeyed in 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.
• Using SNEC as an assumption we proceed to prove a singularity theorem.
• This theorem extends the Penrose singularity theorem to semiclassical gravity and has interesting applications to evaporating black holes.