Related papers: Black Holes, Entropy, and Information
This lecture reviews the black hole information paradox and briefly appraises some proposed resolutions in view of developments in string theory. It goes on to give an elementary introduction to the holographic principle.
Black holes are the elementary particles of gravity, the final state of sufficiently massive stars and of energetic collisions. With a forty-year long history, black hole physics is a fully-blossomed field which promises to embrace several…
The black hole solutions to Einstein's vacuum field equations are also solutions to the equations of motion of the low energy limit of superstring theory. At the same time, string theory boasts a much broader and richer collection of black…
In this review we try to give a pedagogical introduction to the recent progress in the resolution of old problems of black hole thermodynamics within superstring theory. We start with a brief description of classical black hole dynamics.…
What is going on (as of August 2008) at the interface between theoretical general relativity, string-inspired models, and observational astrophysics? Quite a lot. In this mini-survey I will make a personal choice and focus on four specific…
This paper reviews the role of black holes in the context of fundamental physics. After recalling some basic results stemming from Planckian string calculations, I present three examples of how stringy effects can improve the curvature…
Classical black holes are solutions of the field equations of General Relativity. Many astronomical observations suggest that black holes really exist in nature. However, an unambiguous proof for their existence is still lacking. Neither…
I review some recent work in which the quantum states of string theory which are associated with certain black holes have been identified and counted. For large black holes, the number of states turns out to be precisely the exponential of…
On the basis of recently discovered connections between D-branes and black holes, I show how the information puzzle is solved by superstring theory as the fundamental theory of quantum gravity. The picture that emerges is that a…
I review the present theoretical attempts to understand the quantum properties of spacetime. In particular, I illustrate the main achievements and the main difficulties in: string theory, loop quantum gravity, discrete quantum gravity…
First, the relation between black holes and limitations on information of other systems is developed. After reviewing the relation of entropy to information, we derive the entropy bound, review its applications to cosmology and its…
This thesis investigates two main topics concerning black holes in extensions of general relativity inspired by string theory. First, the structure of the equations of motion underlying black hole solutions is considered, in theories of…
This paper provides a brief review of the history of our understanding and knowledge of black holes. Starting with early speculations on ``dark stars'' I discuss the Schwarzschild "black hole" solution to Einstein's field equations and the…
The gravity-scalar field system in spherical symmetry provides a natural setting for exploring gravitational collapse and its aftermath in quantum gravity. In a canonical approach, we give constructions of the constraint and Hamiltonian…
Quantum entanglement lies at the heart of quantum information theory, with applications to quantum computing, teleportation, cryptography and communication. In the apparently separate world of quantum gravity, the Hawking effect of…
The formation and evaporation of a black hole can be viewed as a scattering process in Quantum Gravity. Semiclassical arguments indicate that the process should be non-unitary, and that all the information of the original quantum state…
The entropy and information puzzles arising from black holes cannot be resolved if quantum gravity effects remain confined to a microscopic scale. We use concrete computations in nonperturbative string theory to argue for three kinds of…
Although black holes are objects of central importance across many fields of physics, there is no agreed upon definition for them, a fact that does not seem to be widely recognized. Physicists in different fields conceive of and reason…
Black holes are extremely relativistic objects. Physical processes around them occur in a regime where the gravitational field is extremely intense. Under such conditions, our representations of space, time, gravity, and thermodynamics are…
We have known for more than thirty years that black holes behave as thermodynamic systems, radiating as black bodies with characteristic temperatures and entropies. This behavior is not only interesting in its own right; it could also,…