Related papers: Black holes without firewalls
Recently, Almheiri et. al. argued, via a delicate thought experiment, that it is not consistent to simultaneosuly require that (a) Hawking radiation is pure, (b) effective field theory is valid outside a stretched horizon and (c) infalling…
We present a general framework to study the phase transition of a black hole. Assuming that there is a phase transition, it is shown that without invoking any specific black hole, the critical exponents and the scaling powers can be…
We study to what extent wormholes can mimic the observational features of black holes. It is surprisingly found that many features that could be thought of as ``characteristic'' of a black hole (endowed with an event horizon) can be closely…
Basic properties of black holes are explained in terms of trapping horizons. It is shown that matter and information will escape from an evaporating black hole. A general scenario is outlined whereby a black hole evaporates completely…
Unitary black hole evaporation necessarily involves a late-time superposition of decoherent states, including states describing distinct spacetimes (e.g., different center of mass trajectories of the black hole). Typical analyses of the…
We investigate the effect of gravitational back-reaction on the black hole evaporation process. The standard derivation of Hawking radiation is re-examined and extended by including gravitational interactions between the infalling matter…
The future apparent horizon of a black hole develops large stress energy due to quantum effects, unless the outgoing modes are in a thermal density matrix at the local Hawking temperature. It is shown for generic pure states that the…
The near-horizon field B of an old black hole is maximally entangled with the early Hawking radiation R, by unitarity of the S-matrix. But B must be maximally entangled with the black hole interior A, by the equivalence principle. Causal…
Recently, there have been discussions that black hole complementarity is inconsistent and that the firewall is required to prohibit the observation of duplicated information. It is thought that if the Horowitz-Maldacena proposal works as a…
We investigate whether black holes can be defined without using event horizons. In particular we focus on the thermodynamic properties of event horizons and the alternative, locally defined horizons. We discuss the assumptions and…
After reviewing the shortcomings of existing definitions used to characterize the boundary of a black hole, we present a new method for its characterization. This definition could potentially be applied to locate the boundary of general…
Three postulates asserting the validity of conventional quantum theory, semi-classical general relativity and the statistical basis for thermodynamics are introduced as a foundation for the study of black hole evolution. We explain how…
We investigate the possibility of firewalls in the Einstein-dilaton gravity model of CGHS. We use the results of the numerical simulation carried out by Ashtekar et al. to demonstrate that firewalls are absent and the horizon is drama free.…
Different approaches to quantum gravity conclude that black holes may possess an inner horizon, in addition to the (quantum corrected) outer `Schwarzschild' horizon. In this paper we assume the existence of this inner horizon and explain…
Modes just outside the horizon of a typical old black hole are thermally entangled with distant Hawking radiation. This precludes their entangled purity with interior modes, leading to a firewall. Identifying the interior with the distant…
For an effective field theory in the background of an evaporating black hole with spherical symmetry, we consider non-renormalizable interactions and their relevance to physical effects. The background geometry is determined by the…
One of the most fundamental features of a black hole in general relativity is its event horizon: a boundary from which nothing can escape. There has been a recent surge of interest in the nature of these event horizons and their local…
The Cosmic Blackbody Background Radiation pervades the entire Universe, and so falls into every astrophysical black hole. The blueshift of the infalling photons, measured by a static observer, is infinite at the event horizon. This raises a…
Black holes harbor a spacetime singularity of infinite curvature, where classical spacetime physics breaks down, and current theory cannot predict what will happen. However, the singularity is invisible from the outside because strong…
The firewall paradox states that an observer falling into an old black hole must see a violation of unitarity, locality, or the equivalence principle. Motivated by this remarkable conflict, we analyze the causal structure of black hole…