English

Complementarity Endures: No Firewall for an Infalling Observer

High Energy Physics - Theory 2015-06-05 v4 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We argue that the complementarity picture, as interpreted as a reference frame change represented in quantum gravitational Hilbert space, does not suffer from the "firewall paradox" recently discussed by Almheiri, Marolf, Polchinski, and Sully. A quantum state described by a distant observer evolves unitarily, with the evolution law well approximated by semi-classical field equations in the region away from the (stretched) horizon. And yet, a classical infalling observer does not see a violation of the equivalence principle, and thus a firewall, at the horizon. The resolution of the paradox lies in careful considerations on how a (semi-)classical world arises in unitary quantum mechanics describing the whole universe/multiverse.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1207.6626,
  title  = {Complementarity Endures: No Firewall for an Infalling Observer},
  author = {Yasunori Nomura and Jaime Varela and Sean J. Weinberg},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1207.6626},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

11 pages, 1 figure; clarifications and minor revisions; v3: a small calculation added for clarification; v4: some corrections, conclusion unchanged

R2 v1 2026-06-21T21:42:46.106Z