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Using the action principle we first review how linear density perturbations (sound waves) in an Eulerian fluid obey a relativistic equation: the d'Alembert equation. This analogy between propagation of sound and that of a massless scalar field in a Lorentzian metric also applies to non-homogeneous flows. In these cases, sound waves effectively propagate in a curved four-dimensional ''acoustic'' metric whose properties are determined by the flow. Using this analogy, we consider regular flows which become supersonic, and show that the acoustic metric behaves like that of a black hole. The analogy is so good that, when considering quantum mechanics, acoustic black holes should produce a thermal flux of Hawking phonons. We then focus on two interesting questions related to Hawking radiation which are not fully understood in the context of gravitational black holes due to the lack of a theory of quantum gravity. The first concerns the calculation of the modifications of Hawking radiation which are induced by dispersive effects at short distances, i.e., approaching the atomic scale when considering sound. We generalize existing treatments and calculate the modifications caused by the propagation near the black hole horizon. The second question concerns backreaction effects. We return to the Eulerian action, compute second order effects, and show that the backreaction of sound waves on the fluid's flow can be expressed in terms of their stress-energy tensor. Using this result in the context of Hawking radiation, we compute the secular effect on the background flow.

Inspired by a recent experiment by Steinhauer and co-workers, we present a simple model which describes the formation of an acoustic black hole in a Bose-Einstein condensate, allowing an analytical computation of the evolution in time of the corresponding density-density correlator. We show the emergence of analog Hawking radiation out of a "quantum atmosphere" region significantly displaced from the horizon. This is quantitatively studied both at $T=0$ and even in the presence of an initial temperature T, as is always the case experimentally., 6 pages, 5 figures; final version

An approach toward a self-consistent treatment, at a semiclassical level, of black hole evaporation is presented. The different backreaction effects of massless scalar and vector fields are discussed. On this basis a new evolution scheme for evaporating black holes is suggested in which the evaporation comes to an end before all mass is radiated away.

New and unexpected thermodynamical features of uncharged and non-rotating black holes are discussed starting from a backreaction-corrected temperature expression.

The inclusion of the back-reaction in the Hawking effect leads to the result that, if vector boson fields predominate in nature, then black holes stop evaporating when their mass reaches a non-vanishing limiting value.