Virtual black-hole phenomenology from 2d dilaton theories

Equipped with the tools of (spherically-reduced) dilaton gravity in first-order formulation and with the results of the lowest order S-matrix for s-wave gravitational scattering (Fischer P, Grumiller D, Kummer W and Vassilevich D 2001 Phys. Lett. B 521 357-63) new properties of the ensuing cross section are discussed. We find CPT invariance, despite the non-local nature of our effective theory and discover pseudo-self-similarity in its kinematic sector. After presenting the Carter-Penrose diagram for the corresponding virtual black-hole geometry we encounter distributional contributions to its Ricci scalar and a vanishing Einstein-Hilbert action for that configuration. Finally, a comparison is made between our (Minkowskian) virtual black hole and Hawking's (Euclidean) virtual black-hole bubbles