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I have been following recent work by Susskind [1,2] where he talks about fact that the volume inside an eternal black hole increases with time. I am unsure how to obtain this result. I'll show my attempt and ask questions in the end.

My approach

The metric in Kruskal-Szekeres coordinates is

\begin{equation} ds^2 = \frac{32G^3 M^3}{r}e^{-r/r_s}\big(-dT^2+dX^2\big)+r^2 d\Omega^2 \end{equation}

where the Schwarzschild coordinate radius $r$ can be expressed as

\begin{equation} r=r_s \big[1+W_0 (\frac{X^2-T^2}{e})\big] \end{equation}

where $W_0$ is the Lambert function. I want to calculate the volume of slices at fixed $T$, the metric determinant for these 3-volumes would be

\begin{equation} \det\big[g_\text{induced}\big]=\frac{32G^3 M^3}{r}e^{-r/r_s}r^3 \sin^2 (\theta) \end{equation}

So the volume I want is

\begin{equation} V=4\pi 32G^3 M^3\int_{-T}^{T}e^{-r/2r_s}r^{3/2}dX \end{equation}

where $r$ is implicitely a function of $X$ and $T$. Of course, at $T=1$ these surfaces will hit the singularity, so I guess this notion of 3-volume would only work for $T$ less than 1. The volume I get by integrating this in Wolfram is

My questions are:

  • Why does this decrease even before hitting the singularity?

  • Are there coordinates that foliate the inside in hyperboles, such that they cover it from horizon to singularity fully? I think that the fact that these foliations get cut after $T=1$ is a problem.

  1. https://arxiv.org/abs/1411.0690

  2. https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.11563

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    You seem to be sufficiently knowledgeable to simply do this calculation yourself. What is tripping you up about the calculation? – Prahar Aug 13 '23 at 14:16
  • I tried using Kruskal-Szekeres coordinates but then I wasn't sure how to define the interior. Also, the KS coordinates involve the Lambert W function if you want to write r in terms of X and T and I didn't know how to deal with that either. I was hoping that there was some shorter way of doing it. – P. C. Spaniel Aug 13 '23 at 15:06
  • Gullstrand Painlevé might be easier than Kruskal Szekeres since the spatial metric is euclidean in those. Since the Schwarzschild metric is time independend the volume stays constant though, so you'd have to transform into some time dependend coordinates in order to let it grow. – Yukterez Aug 13 '23 at 19:37
  • In the rainddrop coordinates the space falls into the black hole, but it also gets terminated at the singularity, so the net volume between horizon and singularity stays constant in those. In classic diagonal coordinates the spatial volume inside is imaginary and also constant, but those coordinates are all time independend. – Yukterez Aug 13 '23 at 19:44
  • The "volume" inside black hole is not a well-defined observable, since it an integral over causally disconnected regions. That is (one reason) why analyses normally focus on the area of the event horizon instead. – Buzz Aug 13 '23 at 22:11

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