> what CAUSES the geometric curvature in the first place. The object that collapsed to form the black hole. > If the interior of a black hole becomes a vacuum

> what CAUSES the geometric curvature in the first place. The object that collapsed to form the black hole. > If the interior of a black hole becomes a vacuum, what continues to assert the intense space-time curvature that the new destroyed matter once created? Nothing has to. The curvature maintains itself once it is formed by the collapsing matter. This is an example of an effect of the nonlinearity of the Einstein Field Equation.