Black Hole Radiation, Greybody Factors, and Generalised Wick Rotation

Abstract

In this thesis we look at the intersection of quantum field theory and general relativity. We focus on Hawking radiation from black holes and its implications. This is done on two fronts. In the first we consider the greybody factors arising from a Schwarzschild black hole. We develop a new way to numerically calculate these greybody factors using the transfer matrix formalism and the product calculus. We use this technique to calculate some of the relevant physical quantities and consider their effect on the radiation process.

The second front considers a generalisation of Wick rotation. This is motivated by the success of Wick rotation and Euclidean quantum field theory techniques to calculate the Hawking temperature. We find that, while an analytic continuation of the coordinates is not well defined and highly coordinate dependent, a direct continuation of the Lorentzian signature metric to Euclidean signature has promising results. It reproduces the Hawking temperature and is coordinate independent. However for consistency, we propose a new action for the Euclidean theory which cannot be simply the Euclidean Einstein-Hilbert action.