› Electronic Theses and Dissertations

# Quantum Effects of the Massless Spin One-Half Field in Static Spherically Symmetric Black Hole and Wormhole Spacetimes

## Electronic Theses and Dissertations

### Item Details

abstract
The full renormalized stress-energy tensor for the massless spin one-half field is numerically computed on and outside the event horizon of an extreme Reissner-Nordstrom black hole and on and outside the throat of three static spherically symmetric Lorentzian wormhole spacetimes. The field and all spacetimes studied are in a zero temperature vacuum state. We treat the field quantum mechanically on a classical background spacetime governed by general relativity. The full stress-energy tensor is found to be finite and regular for all spacetimes. We make comparisons between the numerical calculation and the analytic approximation found by Groves {\it et~al.} for the full stress-energy tensor. We find that the approximation is very poor in most cases, even getting the wrong sign for many components. For the extreme Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m black hole, divergences predicted by the analytic approximation of are shown to be nonexistent. Lastly, the results for the full stress-energy tensors for wormholes are analyzed in terms of an arbitrary renormalization parameter to see if the exotic" energy condition needed to keep such an object from collapsing are met. No wormhole geometry studied is found to be a self-consistent solution when quantum fluctuations of the spin one-half field are considered. This is in contrast to the results found using the analytic approximation for the massless spin-one half field which predicts that one of the wormholes might have a self-consistent solution, since the stress-energy tensor found satisfies the exotic energy condition.
subject
wormhole
black hole
quantum gravity
semi-classical gravity
stress-energy
exotic energy
spherically symmetric
fermions
contributor
Carlson, Eric (committee chair)
Cook, Greg (committee member)
Anderson, Paul (committee member)
Williams, Richard (committee member)
Robinson, Stephen (committee member)
date
2009-08-06T15:56:23Z (accessioned)
2010-06-18T19:00:06Z (accessioned)
2009-08-06T15:56:23Z (available)
2010-06-18T19:00:06Z (available)
2009-08-06T15:56:23Z (issued)
degree
Physics (discipline)
identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/10339/14923 (uri)
language
en_US (iso)
publisher
Wake Forest University
rights
Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide. (accessRights)
title
Quantum Effects of the Massless Spin One-Half Field in Static Spherically Symmetric Black Hole and Wormhole Spacetimes
type
Dissertation