Massive Vector Fields Generate Horizon-Brightened Acceleration Radiation in Schwarzschild Black Holes
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The behaviour of particles near black holes continues to reveal surprising insights into fundamental physics, and recent work by Reggie C. Pantig from Mapúa University, and Ali Övgün from Eastern Mediterranean University, investigates how massive vector fields influence the radiation emitted by accelerating atoms.
This research establishes a comprehensive treatment of acceleration radiation, examining atoms falling into a Schwarzschild black hole within a massive spin-1 field, and demonstrates that the thermal characteristics of this radiation are universal, depending only on the geometry near the black hole. Crucially, the team reveals distinctive signatures arising from the vector field itself, including a clear mass threshold and polarization-dependent effects, offering a pathway to distinguish between different responses and probe the fundamental properties of these fields in extreme gravitational environments. These findings not only deepen our understanding of radiation near black holes, but also provide a foundation for exploring more complex scenarios and detector designs, potentially unlocking new avenues for testing fundamental physics. Employing a sophisticated, non-perturbative approach based on quantum electrodynamics, the team demonstrates a significant modification of the acceleration radiation spectrum, exhibiting a pronounced brightening near the event horizon and a characteristic spectral shift dependent on the vector field’s mass. This work contributes to a deeper understanding of acceleration radiation in curved spacetime and provides insights into potential observational signatures of massive vector fields in strong gravitational environments. The research analyzes detector types, current coupling to charged monopoles and physical electric-dipole coupling, situated within a cavity isolating a single outgoing Schwarzschild mode prepared in a specific quantum state. Utilizing a near-horizon analysis, the team demonstrates that the thermal balance governing excitation and absorption is universal, depending only on the local geometry near the black hole’s event horizon. Simultaneously, the absolute spectra acquire distinctive signatures related to the massive vector field, including a clear mass threshold and polarization characteristics.
Atom Radiation During Black Hole Infall This research investigates the acceleration radiation of atoms falling into black holes, extending and refining previous work to explore how these effects could potentially be observed and used to probe black hole physics, modified gravity, and even dark matter. Building on the horizon brightened acceleration radiation (HBAR) framework, the authors aim to understand how an accelerating atom near a black hole emits a surprisingly bright burst of radiation just before crossing the event horizon. The research incorporates acceleration radiation, a standard result in quantum electrodynamics, and accurately calculates this radiation in the extreme gravitational environment near a black hole. The HBAR model predicts a significant amplification of acceleration radiation due to strong spacetime curvature, and the authors are refining this model by treating the atom as an open quantum system interacting with its environment.
The Lindblad Master Equation describes the atom’s time evolution, accounting for internal dynamics and environmental interaction, while quantum trajectory simulations model the atom’s behaviour and calculate the emitted radiation. Perturbation theory analyzes the effects of small deviations from general relativity, and the Regge-Wheeler Equation analyzes massive vector fields in the Schwarzschild spacetime.
The team has developed a more sophisticated model of HBAR, incorporating various quantum effects and modifications to gravity, demonstrating that the HBAR signal is sensitive to deviations from general relativity. The presence of dark matter could alter the HBAR signal, providing a potential detection method, and the Generalized Uncertainty Principle and derivative coupling can also modify the signal. The authors confirm and refine the prediction of horizon brightening, where radiation intensity increases as the atom approaches the event horizon, and find that the redshift of the emitted radiation can be enhanced near the black hole. They also explore the role of Floquet resonances, which can occur when the atom’s motion is periodic, leading to enhanced radiation emission. This work provides a new way to test the predictions of general relativity in the strong-field regime and offers a potential new avenue for detecting dark matter. It could help us better understand the physics of black holes, including their formation, evolution, and properties, and provide insights into the nature of quantum gravity. The authors suggest that the HBAR signal could potentially be observed using future astrophysical instruments, laying the groundwork for such observations, and its sensitivity to modified gravity and other new physics effects makes this work relevant to broader searches for physics beyond the Standard Model.
Proca Field Emission Near Black Hole Horizons This research extends the established framework for acceleration radiation to encompass massive spin-1 fields, specifically examining atoms falling into a Schwarzschild black hole. Scientists successfully demonstrated that the fundamental thermal behaviour governing excitation and absorption is universal, depending only on the local geometry near the black hole’s event horizon and remaining independent of particle spin, mass, polarization, or the specific detector used. Absolute spectra, however, exhibit distinctive signatures related to the Proca field, including a clear mass threshold and polarization-dependent transmission characteristics. By converting probabilities into emission and absorption rates, the team derived a master equation that predicts a geometric steady state, with the entropy flux obeying an area-entropy relation consistent with established principles. The research confirms that while detector type, particle mass, and polarization influence relaxation speeds and flux magnitudes, they do not alter the fundamental equilibrium ratio. The findings reveal experimentally relevant imprints in the Proca spectrum, such as a sharp onset at the mass threshold, channel-dependent scaling near this threshold, and polarization weights that distinguish different detector couplings. The authors acknowledge limitations in explicitly calculating axial and polar greybody factors and suggest future work could explore rotating black hole backgrounds, alternative exterior states, and detector engineering to further refine the phenomenology. However, they emphasize that these extensions would not alter the core results concerning the universal thermal kernel, geometric steady state, and area-entropy relation established in this study. 👉 More information 🗞 Horizon Brightened Acceleration Radiation from Massive Vector Fields 🧠 ArXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.08598 Tags: