Related papers: Macroscopic superpositions and black hole unitarit…
We consider the black hole information problem in an explicitly defined spacetime modelling black hole evaporation. Using this context we review basic aspects of the problem, with a particular effort to be unambiguous about subtle topics,…
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…
In this invited review, we discuss the evaporation of a black hole, with emphasis on the resulting macroscopically distinct patterns of Hawking radiation. The density matrix of this radiation can approach a pure final state in the form of a…
A coarse-grained description for the formation and evaporation of a black hole is given within the framework of a unitary theory of quantum gravity preserving locality, without dropping the information that manifests as macroscopic…
After a brief reminscence about work with K. Sato 25 years ago on the monopole problem and inflation, a discussion is given of the black hole information paradox. It is argued that, quite generally, it should be anticipated that the states…
This contribution overviews the information paradox, or perhaps more aptly "unitarity crisis," and a proposed resolution called nonviolent unitarization. It begins by examining the conflict of principles that yields the crisis, which can be…
The recent progress in string theory strongly suggests that formation and evaporation of black holes is a unitary process. This fact makes it imperative that we find a flaw in the semiclassical reasoning that implies a loss of information.…
This paper revisits the conundrum faced when one attempts to understand the dynamics of black hole formation and evaporation without abandoning unitary evolution. Previous efforts to resolve this puzzle assume that information escapes in…
Black hole evaporation is one of the most striking phenomena at the interface between gravity and quantum physics. In Hawking's semi-classical treatment, where matter is quantum mechanical and the spacetime is definite and classical,…
We investigate the experimental capabilities required to test whether black holes destroy information. We show that an experiment capable of illuminating the information puzzle must necessarily be able to detect or manipulate macroscopic…
The aim of this chapter is twofold. First, we introduce the information loss problem; second, we provide a critical assessment by thoroughly inspecting the assumptions underlying its formulations. In particular, we argue that if we work in…
We show that if a massive body is put in a quantum superposition of spatially separated states, the mere presence of a black hole in the vicinity of the body will eventually destroy the coherence of the superposition. This occurs because,…
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 problem of information loss is considered under the assumption that the process of black hole evaporation terminates in the decay of the black hole interior into a baby universe. We show that such theories can be decomposed into…
It was recently shown that a black hole (or any Killing horizon) will decohere any quantum superposition in their vicinity. I review three distinct but equivalent arguments that illustrate how this phenomenon arises: (1) entanglement with…
Forty years after the discovery of Hawking radiation, its exact nature remains elusive. If Hawking radiation does not carry any information out from the ever shrinking black hole, it seems that unitarity is violated once the black hole…
It has been shown that the quantum state of the graviton field outside a black hole horizon carries information about the internal state of the hole. We explain how this allows unitary evaporation: the final radiation state is a complex…
For a unitary description of an evaporating black hole, one usually chooses the time slices that cover only outside of the event horizon, which is mostly problem-free because the event horizon is not encountered. However, is there any…
A first-principles approach to the unitarity problem for black holes is systematically explored, based on the postulates of 1) quantum mechanics 2) the ability to approximately locally divide quantum gravitational systems into subsystems 3)…
We investigate the experimental capabilities required to test whether black holes destroy information. We show that an experiment capable of illuminating the information puzzle must necessarily be able to detect or manipulate macroscopic…