Black hole decay and quantum instantons

Abstract

We study the analytic structure of the S matrix which is obtained from the reduced Wheeler-DeWitt wave function describing spherically symmetric gravitational collapse of massless scalar fields. The complex simple poles in the S matrix lead to the wave functions that satisfy the same boundary condition as quasinormal modes of a black hole, and correspond to the bounded states of the Euclidean Wheeler-DeWitt equation. These wave function are interpreted as quantum instantons.