Evaporation of four-dimensional dynamical black holes sourced by the quantum trace anomaly

Abstract: We study the evaporation of a four-dimensional spherically symmetric black hole formed in a gravitational collapse. We analyze the back-reaction of a massless quantum scalar field conformally coupled to the scalar curvature by means of the semiclassical Einstein equations. We show that the evaporation is linked to an ingoing negative energy flux at the dynamical horizon and that this flux is induced by the quantum matter trace anomaly outside the black hole horizon whenever a suitable averaged energy condition is satisfied. For illustrative purposes, we evaluate the negative ingoing flux and the corresponding rate of evaporation in the case of a null radiating star described by the Vaidya spacetime.