  We present a new avenue to black hole evaporation using a heat-kernel
approach analogous as for the Schwinger effect. Applying this method to an
uncharged massless scalar field in a Schwarzschild spacetime, we show that
spacetime curvature takes a similar role as the electric field strength in the
Schwinger effect. We interpret our results as local pair production in a
gravitational field and derive a radial production profile. The resulting
emission peaks near the unstable photon orbit. Comparing the particle number
and energy flux to the Hawking case, we find both effects to be of similar
order. However, our pair production mechanism itself does not explicitly make
use of the presence of a black hole event horizon.
