English

The Library of Babel

High Energy Physics - Theory 2015-06-26 v1

Abstract

We show that heavy pure states of gravity can appear to be mixed states to almost all probes. Our arguments are made for AdS5\rm{AdS}_5 Schwarzschild black holes using the field theory dual to string theory in such spacetimes. Our results follow from applying information theoretic notions to field theory operators capable of describing very heavy states in gravity. For certain supersymmetric states of the theory, our account is exact: the microstates are described in gravity by a spacetime ``foam'', the precise details of which are invisible to almost all probes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/0505123,
  title  = {The Library of Babel},
  author = {Vijay Balasubramanian and Vishnu Jejjala and Joan Simón},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/0505123},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

7 pages, 1 figure, Essay receiving honorable mention in the 2005 Gravity Research Foundation essay competition

R2 v1 2026-07-22T15:30:01.099Z