A black hole mass threshold from non-singular quantum gravitational collapse

Abstract

Quantum gravity is expected to remove the classical singularity that arises as the end-state of gravitational collapse. To investigate this, we work with a toy model of a collapsing homogeneous scalar field. We show that non-perturbative semi-classical effects of Loop Quantum Gravity cause a bounce and remove the black hole singularity. Furthermore, we find a critical threshold scale, below which no horizon forms -- quantum gravity may exclude very small astrophysical black holes.

Minor changes to match published version in Physical Review Letters

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Elements of Loop Quantum Cosmology
• Bibliography of Publications related to Classical Self-dual variables and Loop Quantum Gravity