English

Entropy of Localized States and Black Hole Evaporation

High Energy Physics - Theory 2009-10-30 v2

Abstract

We call a state "vacuum-bounded" if every measurement performed outside a specified interior region gives the same result as in the vacuum. We compute the maximum entropy of a vacuum-bounded state with a given energy for a one-dimensional model, with the aid of numerical calculations on a lattice. The maximum entropy is larger than it would be for rigid wall boundary conditions by an amount δS\delta S which for large energies is less than or approximately (1/6)ln(LinT)(1/6) ln (L_in T), where L_in is the length of the interior region. Assuming that the state resulting from the evaporation of a black hole is similar to a vacuum-bounded state, and that the similarity between vacuum-bounded and rigid-wall-bounded problems extends from 1 to 3 dimensions, we apply these results to the black hole information paradox. We conclude that large amounts of information cannot be emitted in the final explosion of a black hole.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/9610086,
  title  = {Entropy of Localized States and Black Hole Evaporation},
  author = {Ken D. Olum},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/9610086},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

27 pages, ReVTeX, 5 postscript figures using epsf. Miscellaneous cleanups, one section rewritten for clarity