Cosmological Constant and Vacuum Zero Point Energy in Black Hole Backgrounds

Abstract

We study the quantum vacuum zero point energy in the Schwarzschild black hole as well as in the Nariai limit of the dS-Schwarzschild backgrounds. We show that the regularized vacuum energy density near the black hole and also in the Nariai setup match exactly with the corresponding value in the flat background, scaling with the fourth power of the mass of the quantum field. The horizon radius of the dS space created from the vacuum zero point energy introduces a new length scale which should be compared with the black hole horizon radius. There is an upper limiting mass for the black hole immersed in the vacuum zero point energy which is determined by the mass of the Nariai metric associated to the dS background constructed from zero point energy. This result supports the proposal made recently that the dS spacetime created from the vacuum zero point energy develops strong inhomogeneities on sub-horizon scales in which the regions inside the dS horizon radius may collapse to form black holes.